After A Hurricane
by bcofemison
Summary: Set the first day back at school after 5x13 (The Christmas episode). Alison's feeling extremely lonely, and feels like she doesn't have any friends. Until her favourite teacher assigns her to work with someone who she might have had hooked up with in her bed a few months back, and now that exact same person thinks she's the one tourturing her and her friends. Great.
1. A Cute Picture

**A/N: Hello! I hope you guys will enjoy this story. I wanna write an emison story that starts in after the 5x13 because I feel like there's barely any stories from then, and I think it was a perfect time for multiple emison possibilities. Just as a disclaimer, I know that the liars had their senior year in the show 2011-2012, but I can't remember anything that was actually going on then, so (this may be confusing) but I'm setting this story up as if their senior year was 2016-2017. There will also be a load of pop culture references in this, mainly Rupaul's Drag Race, because I'm obessed with it and I feel like certain people in this show would be too. Reviews would be amazing, because I really do wanna make this story as good as it can be. I also have a feeling this story will be very long, so I hope you'll all stay tuned for new chapters soon. Also, the title comes from the Katy Perry song Firework. Okay, byeee!**

I sighed as I got out of my car that I had just parked in the school parking lot. It had been a couple of weeks since the dreadful Christmas ball. Ever since then, the girls had either ignored, avoided or glared at me. Needless to say, I'd been rather lonely. My only friend in the world, CeCe, was in Paris, and my father and Jason were on the world's longest business trip. I spent my alone time curled up on the couch watching TV shows. My favourite obviously being RuPaul's Drag Race.

I had actually managed to get my grades up substantially, even making my way up to getting transferred to AP classes, seeing as I only got A's and B's. Trust me when I say this; that certainly doesn't mean I liked studying, doing homework and going to school, I just had nothing else to do. –A hadn't bothered me in ages, and the police had ruled me out as a suspect for Mona's murderer when I told them the full truth about everything. There were minor consequences for lying, but they weren't so bad. The police told me they wouldn't tell anyone what I said, so I doubted the girls knew about my truthfulness.

Walking into the school for the first time since early December, I felt totally invisible; everyone was over the not-dead girl with no friends. I actually liked finally having all the attention on me for once. It was refreshing to say the least. I just hoped this new semester would be just easy and boring.

The halls were buzzing; I think the lacrosse team had just been announced this weekend for the season, if any of the jocks celebrative snapchat stories were any indication. I rolled my eyes at the overconfident jocks (who were now slapping each other on the back and screaming their heads off) as I made my way to my locker. I opened it up and grabbed my history and science books for first and second period, already tired before the semester had even begun.

If I were being honest, my locker was very plain. The only thing in there was a shelf to store more books and a photo. The photo hanging up was the one CeCe and I took the summer before I ran away. Looking at it reminded me that there was someone in this world who loved and trusted me. I started putting some books I'd taken home from last semester back into my locker. Then I heard a group of footsteps approach the locker to my left. I didn't bother to look up, I already knew who it was.

"So," Hanna began, "I was thinking we could do it at Spencer's house."

"Oh yeah, Han, go ahead and invite everyone to my house." Spencer said sarcastically.

"Well then where do you suggest?" Hanna huffed.

"My house, obviously you fucking idiot." Spencer laughed. Hanna lightly slapped her shoulder.

"Bitch."

"Well, Han, that's what you get for stealing the last slice of pizza." Emily tested.

"Please can we not start this again?" Aria begged.

"Fine." Emily and Hanna agreed in unison.

I saw Hanna glance at me from the corner of my eyes. The girls started stating the various classes that they needed to go get their books for and they went to their own lockers. Hanna opened the locker next to mine and got some books out.

"That's a cute picture." Hanna commented, looking at the picture of CeCe and I. I instantly jumped and let out a yelp of shock that she actually bothered to say something nice to me.

"Um… thank you." I awkwardly replied. Hanna stared at the picture for a minute before closing her locker and walking away. I shook my head at the strange interaction before making my way to history class. As the first bell rang, I heard Mrs Welch shout at the still rowdy jocks, telling them to get to class. I laughed.

"Good morning class! On your way in make sure to check the sheet on the wall. It shows you where you'll sit for the rest of the year! Oh, and please remember to remember the number next to your name!" The always happy Miss Ballinger greeted as I walked into her class. I checked the list and found my name near the top.

 _DiLaurentis, Alison, Row 6, Seat 1, Number 1_

It was a great seat. Back row, right in the corner. The number, however, I was quite confused about. I noted that everyone's number was either 1 or 2 as I skimmed down the number column. I sat down in my new seat and put my bag under the table. This classroom was one of the only rooms in the school to have tables in rows that fit 4 students along them, instead of just a desk for one or two. There were two tables in each row, so the classroom was pretty cramped, but that meant that the teacher could barely tell what was going on in the back. You could get away with things like going on your phone, sleeping or eating.

I folded my arms on the table and rested my head in them, closing my eyes. The teacher had long given up on telling me otherwise. As the class filed in, I heard someone take a seat next to me, but I really could not be asked to lift my head to see who it was. Suddenly, I heard the teacher close the door.

"Okay class, these seats are where you're going to be sitting for the rest of the school year. Did everyone remember their numbers?" There was a collective 'yes' that I didn't bother to join in on. "Good. Now, if you're a one, look to your right, and if you're a two, look to your left. The person you're looking at will be your history partner for the rest of the year. This is the person you'll be going all of your classwork, assignments, homework, and presentations with. Let's hope none of you have beef with one another." The last comment earned a laugh from the class.

I decide I should probably look up and see who my partner would be. I gasp as I see who it is. None other than Emily fucking Fields. Great, there goes my A+ in this class.


	2. Morning, -A

**A/N: Hi! New chapter! This one's pretty boring, but they're gonna get more interesting as the story goes on. I'm curious, does anyone wanna see the story from other points of view. I'm thinking about doing a chapter from Emily's view, or maybe even one of the girls, tell me what you think! Please review, fav and follow! Here's the second chapter:**

I stared at Emily for a moment before I began to talk.

"Listen, I won't be offended if you go ask to swap partners, I understand that-"

"No, it's not worth the effort, I'm sure we can make this work. I mean you're getting an A in this class, aren't you?" Emily interrupted.

"Yeah, A+. Why?"

"Please, don't tell anyone, but… I'm only getting a D-, if we work together can you help me get it up?"

I got confused. If Emily thought I was –A, why would she want to work with me, and more importantly, why would she trust me with whatever grade she got in this class. "Y-yeah! But, I thought you-"

"Let's just keep what I think about you and what you are separate from our work, I need to pass this class, Alison."

I thought about what she had just said for a second before responding to her, "Okay, fine. If I don't bring it up, you can't either."

"I won't." She responded.

There wasn't really anything left to clarify after that. We both sat there looking around before the teacher started talking again.

"Okay, class," Miss Ballinger began, "Now you've had a chance to talk to your partner, I'm gonna introduce you to what we've been learning about for the next couple months. Now, this isn't really that focused on history, but you will defiantly have to use history in it. This will test how well you can use history to back up a theory. To be honest, the history department just want you all to have fun for the rest of the year, so we decided that since we've covered everything important over your four years here, that we could just enjoy ourselves before we say goodbye."

This made me curious as to what we'd be learning, I saw Emily give me a puzzled look in the corner of my eye before the teacher continued.

"We are going to be learning about… conspiracies!" Miss revealed.

Well, she wasn't wrong. It had barely anything to do with history, but it was one of the most interesting things in the world to me. A smile came onto my face as miss started talking about our first assignment. All we had to do was chose one small theory we believed in, and make a PowerPoint on it.

"You won't have to present it to the class, just email it to me. It's just to prepare you for a later project."

The rest of the class was spent collecting new books for the topic and going on my phone. When I was scrolling through the drag race tag on tumblr, the bell rang.

"Hey, Alison. Can I come to your house after school to start work on the project?" Emily asked as we packed our stuff up. I was taken aback at the request before I muttered a quick 'okay' and ran out of the class.

I slowly made my way to science, thinking about why Emily would even want to come to my house. She probably just wanted to get the project over with, and she defiantly didn't trust me in her house. I wasn't looking forward to spending so much time with the brunette.

As I walked into science, I saw my partner was already sat down at our desk in the front row, closest to the door. I took a seat next to her.

"Morning, Spencer." I mumbled.

"Morning, -A." She replied with malice.

This was what we've been saying every class (of course changing between 'morning' and 'afternoon' depending on the day) since Thanksgiving, so I wasn't even bothered by her response anymore.

In this class, Spencer and I ignored each other whenever possible, and then used as little words as we could when having to work together. But it was fine, we were both getting an A overall.

The lesson was boring. Mr Austen went on for a while about some kind of species of human about a million years ago. Spencer and I just took notes before we got dismissed and left.

The rest of the day went by even slower, the only fun part being Noel and I messing around in drama for fourth period. Noel was fun to annoy the teacher with in art, drama, music, French and English, but that doesn't mean I'd exactly consider him a friend. That's because those lessons were the only time we talked. I would've like to be closer to him, he was my best friend for two years when I was on the run, and I grew up with him always being right there. But I settled with what I could get.

At lunch, I went to the library, not wanting to face everyone in the cafeteria. Looking around, I decided to sit at the big table. I didn't really want anyone who came in there to know it was me sitting there, so I decided to put on my massive grey hoodie and put the hood up. I pulled out some algebra homework I had gotten in third period. Quickly, I worked my way through the questions while eating some food I had in my bag. I noticed that there were no teachers in the library, not even the librarian. I decided to put my headphones on and go on my phone.

"I'm just saying, it doesn't mean you have to." I heard a familiar voice say, making it's way over to where I was sitting.

"Han, the way you're saying it just makes it sound like I have to." Emily said as the group of four girls sat at the other end of the table to me.

Then I heard Spencer's voice, "Em, we just want you to be happy and it's obvious you're not."

"Yeah, you just need to go tell her that you can't do it, because otherwise you're gonna fail." Aria concluded.

Great. They were talking about Emily being my history partner, I was sure of it.

After a moment, Emily spoke up again, "Guys, I don't know. I've been with her for so long…"

"I call so much bullshit on that, you've only been together since Thanksgiving." Hanna said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, but, we dated in last year."

"When she tried to drown you?"

"Spencer, please, get over that." Emily was growing angrier, "She was just confused. It's not okay just to use that as an excuse to hate her. When you're dealing with your sexuality, you can do bad things."

"Well, I think Paige shouldn't use sexuality crisis as an excuse. Yeah I get it, it's serious and scary and confusing but that doesn't mean she can get away with trying to kill her 'crush'." I had to hide at laugh at Spencer's air quotes.

"Are you really gonna use air quotes right now? What are you trying to say? That Paige doesn't love me? Bullshit!" Emily shouted.

"Em, stop having such a double-fucking-standard!" Hanna suddenly snapped.

"What could you possibly be talking about now?" Emily sighed as she threw her arms up in the air.

"Calm down, Beyoncé. Listen, I've been thinking, and maybe we forgot one tiny little thing in our great Alison theory…" Hanna began, and I listened closer, while putting my head further into my work. "Maybe, Ali's not –A." Hanna suggested.

Emily decided to answer that, "Han, we can't come up with a crazy theory now, she's obviously –A."

"Did you know, the lowest grade she's getting is B+? How could she be getting such amazing grades, and still have time to terrorise us? It doesn't make sense." Emily rolled her eyes at Spencer's addition to the idea.

"Weak evidence."

"No, Em, these two might be onto something." Aria said.

"Well, Em, if you're gonna excuse Paige for attempted murder because she was struggling with her sexuality, you should excuse Ali for being a bitchy fourteen year old because she was struggling with hers." Hanna said, looking proud she'd put the pieces together.

"Are you serious?" Em said, eyes wide.

"Yes, didn't you and her have a thing? And that story about the locker room; she obviously wanted you near her, touching her, but then you scared her with the kiss." Hanna wasn't wrong. In fact, she had me down to a T. Fuck.

"I can't talk about this right now." Emily huffed as she got up and stormed out.

"Don't leave just because you know I'm right!" Hanna shouted after her, but Emily had already left.

Aria sighed while Spencer buried her head in her hands.

"Why," Spencer began, "do you have to be right the one time we need you to be wrong?"

Hanna pulled out her phone as she replied, "She needs a wake up call. Simple as that."

"Do you really think Ali is innocent?" Aria asked.

"I do. I think we were all waiting for her to fuck up, and the second she did we turned on her. She came back to town because we forced her to, we could at least be friends."

"Well, Hanna, how about you tell us all about this later on at my house, you can plead your case all you want while I have some whiskey, yeah?" The girls laughed at Spencer as they got up.

"Now, let's find Em the Drama Queen before she cuts a freshman." Aria laughed.

"Has she done that before?" Hanna questioned.

"Wow, you're so fucking dumb." Spencer and Aria both started cackling their heads off, and, with that, the three were gone.


	3. Too Boring To Be Big

**A/N: Hi! EMISON ARE FINALLY DATING! I'm so fucking excited for 7x18 not gonna lie. To the guest who left this review on my last chapter "** **Whatever you do, don't rush emison. Too many fanfictions rush them being together. They go from Emily hating Ali in one chapter to Emily telling Ali that she is her soulmate literally in the next chapter. Don't do cliché stuff like that. Slow burn with a good story build up is the best. Perhaps even introducing a new love interest for Ali to make Emily jealous would be good." Please don't worry! Rushing emison and being all cliché is exactly what I don't want to do! And thank you so much for you're suggestion, I'm going to use it in this chapter, I hope you like it! Thank you so much for the amount of support this story had gotten so far, every fav/follow/view means so much to me. Please please please review if you want to help this story get better. I feel like I should also mention that since this website only let's you pick 2 things for the genre, that this fic is romance, hurt/comfort, angst, humor and friendship all in one, if that makes sense lol. Okay, that was really long but please enjoy this chapter!**

When the end of the day finally rolled around I hung by my locker, taking my sweet time to put my stuff in there. Geometry and Government had been extremely boring, I had to just sit there and take notes. In Government I could feel Hanna staring at me from her seat a few rows behind me, and she had been kind of freaking me out all day. Ever since I heard her talk about me in the library I've wanted to go and ask her what she meant, but I have a feeling me going up to her and asking her about a private conversation she had while I wasn't there might make her rethink that I'm not her stalker.

"Alison, hi." Emily greeted as she stood next to me at my locker.

"Oh, hi." I said back and finished putting things in my locker and closed it.

"So, are you ready to-" Emily began before someone interrupted her.

"Hi Ali." Noel smiled at me as he stood in front of us. Emily looked pissed off at him for interrupting her and he continued. "I've gotta get to football practice but I just wanna ask you something."

"What do you want, Noel?" Emily snapped.

"Okay, calm down," Noel laughed as he turned his attention back to me. "Ali, do you want to go to Ed's Diner on Friday? Bowling and a movie? We haven't hung out for ages."

I thought about it for a moment, "Are you asking me out on a date?" I flirted while Emily rolled her eyes, thinking I couldn't see her.

"Of course, DiLaurentis." He laughed and winked. I laughed back at him.

"Fine. Six o'clock. Pick me up at my house. And if you dare wear a shirt with a fucking stain on it again Noel I swear-"

"That was one time, bitch." We both laughed together and I could feel Emily glaring at us.

"Well, I don't know about you but I'll be wearing the best gown I own." I joked.

"I'll be earing a skintight tux with a tie and top hat."

"Won't the skintight tux show everyone you don't have a dick?" He gave me a fake glare.

"I'll get you for that." He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, said goodbye and ran off to practice.

"Well, that was unexpected." Emily thought aloud after he was out of sight. "I didn't know you two were friends."

"I wouldn't exactly use that word to describe us." I told her, not thinking about how that sounded.

"So what? He's your boyfriend?" A suddenly annoyed Emily snapped.

My eyes widened before I replied, "What? No!"

"Well, it sure seems like you two are close."

"He's fun."

"To do what with? Fuck?"

"Maybe, why would it matter to you?" I challenged her, raising an eyebrow.

"It doesn't." She answered. I almost laughed at how fake her answer sounded.

"Good, then you won't have any problems not bringing it up again." I ended the conversation at that. We began walking out of the school together. As we were getting close to the door, Spencer came up to Emily.

"Em, are you still coming tonight?" She asked.

"Yeah, of course."

"Great, Hanna's gonna talk about-" She stopped as she noticed me there, "What we discussed earlier. So don't go ape shit again."

"I won't. Hanna better have a good case, otherwise I'm cutting her." Spencer laughed.

"About that, Hanna thinks you cut freshman when you get angry."

Emily seemed really confused, "What?"

"I think Aria and I made her think so. Anyways, I've gotta go meet up with Toby, bye."

"Bye, love you." Emily said as Spencer walked off.

"Love you, too, you short tempered bitch." Spencer shouted from the other end of the hallway.

Emily and I walked out of the school doors and made our way to the parking lot, which was about a two minute walk. We decided to take my car, and the whole way to my house I could feel Emily's eyes burning into my head. We drove in silence, mainly because neither of us bothered speaking to the other, and also because it was too awkward to even try and turn on the radio. When we finally pulled up into my driveway, I parked the car and quick as I could and got out. I could at last breathe. Emily got out slower than I did, collecting her things from her feet before opening the door.

"Is anyone else home?" She asked me as we walked to the porch.

"No, Jason and my dad aren't gonna be back until like graduation or something like that." I told her as I got my key out of my bag.

Emily looked astonished that someone's parent would leave their kid on their own for that long. "That's insane."

I opened the door, "Yeah, I guess."

"So, you're just on your own?"

"No, once every few days when Spencer's out Mrs. Hastings comes over to check on my and makes me something to eat, so there is an adult around."

"Oh, that's good I guess." She responded. Emily stood awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for some kind of sign that she could come in.

"Em, come on, let's go to my room so we can get started." I encouraged her before turning around and going up to my room. I heard behind me Emily following me up the stairs and smiled. When we made it to my room, I told Emily to take a seat on my bed while I got out some books, notepads, pens and my laptop. I laid down on my stomach and Emily did the same next to me. We now both had something in front of us to write on. When I opened my laptop it made me put in my password. As I typed I hoped to god that Emily couldn't see what it was. _09emilyf93._ It was my password because I first kissed Emily in 2009, and she was born in 1993. When it finally opened, I saw Emily staring at my background. It was a picture of Noel and I when we were ten, in the middle of the woods next to an old lake where our families always used to take us for picnics, barbecues', nature walks, camping and other things along those lines.

"Who's that?" Emily asked after a pause.

"Noel and I."

"Oh. So, anyways," She changed the subject, "We should probably work on what theory we should do. For the PowerPoint."

"Yeah sure." I opened Google and typed in 'conspiracy theories'.

"Well, the teacher said to make it a small one, so don't chose the illuminati or something, because that one's massive. If we can, we should probably do that for our final project." Suggested Emily.

"It's a good idea, but for our final project we should do something really cool and one that no one else would be bothered to do, like the theory that Atlantis is under the Bermuda Triangle. That could be so fun."

"Yeah, maybe. Let's just focus on this for now." She motioned towards the computer screen. After a while of debating, we settled on chem trails. I told her it was a big one, but she argued that it was 'too boring to be big'. In the end I gave up and let her win. We began making a PowerPoint, Emily insisted on using animations and transitions to 'make it fun'.

"See, look how nice that looks." She said after adding a particularly strange animation to a picture.

"I'm not buying it."

'Whatever. Boring." She said as she continued adding them.

At around 6 we had finished the PowerPoint and emailed it to the teacher.

"Well, that wasn't so bad." She said after I closed the laptop and cleared my bed.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I sat down again, cross-legged.

"I mean that we can work together, even if I think you're an evil manipulative bitch."

Brilliant. I tried to act that that didn't hurt me severely and replied jokily, "And here I was thinking we were getting along."

"As if, I just care about raising my grades, not you." She said seriously before collecting her stuff, "See you tomorrow in class." And she left my room. I tried to stay calm but after I heard the front door close I crawled into a ball on my bed and started crying. I really fucked up badly somewhere along the line for things to get like this. I ended up crying myself to sleep for the millionth time in a row.


	4. Certainly Not Normal

**A/N: I'm not sure how long this chapter's going to be but something tells me it's gonna be really short, so sorry if it is, I really am trying to make these longer, so please tell me what kind of length you guys all want. This chapter's gonna be told from Emily's point of view, because it's important that you guys know what Hanna has to say, and what Emily is thinking. If you want more chapters from different points of view – they don't just have to be Emily or Alison – or just have something you want to say, please please please leave a review! And don't forget to fav/follow, it really means a lot to me. Okay, now enjoy chapter 4!**

I left Alison's house quickly and made my way to Spencer's. I don't know why I had to ruin the afternoon by adding that jab at the end. Maybe I just needed her to know nothing had changed. I still thought she was –A, I truly did. I knew Hanna was going to try to change my mind, but I also knew it wouldn't work. If anything, what Hanna was about to say would make me laugh. I opened Spencer's gate and walked up the back entrance of the house. I peeked in the door and saw all the girls there already.

"Hey guys." I greeted as I walked into Spencer's great room.

"Hi Em." Aria said with a smile and she patted the seat next to her on the couch.

"How was working with Ali?" Hanna asked as she helped Spencer make something in the kitchen.

"It was alright, we got our work done. But I said something at the end that was a little bit harsh." I confessed.

Hanna seemed suddenly a lot more interested, fucking gossip loving bitch, "What did you say?"

"I said that she was an evil manipulative bitch and I didn't care about her."

"Yeah, that's a tad harsh." Spencer sarcastically scoffed from the kitchen.

"Well, she deserved to hear it, she is –A, after all." I argued.

"Not for long. I know the truth." Hanna smirked.

"I know that's bullshit." I laughed.

Aria decided to chime in, "It's not."

"Don't even try to convince me otherwise."

"Em, stop being stubborn for a minute." Spencer said.

"No!" I shouted, "You all need to stop being so delusional. Alison's good at her schoolwork, so I'll tolerate her to get a good grade in a hard class, but we all know she's been torturing us, manipulating this whole town and she murdered Mona!"

Hanna sighed, "Emily, just hear me out."

"It won't change what I think." I scoffed stubbornly.

"Then it won't matter if I say it or not."

Hanna and Spencer came over to the couches and sat down. Hanna proceeded to talk some absolute bullshit about –A framing Alison, throwing the attention over to Alison so we'd all we so concerned with catching Alison that we wouldn't catch the real –A. Spencer and Aria were hooked the words coming out of her mouth. I wasn't letting myself pay too much attention, even when Hanna started presenting evidence, I had my opinion, and I knew it was correct. Instead, I began to wonder how great Hanna's grades would be if she put this much effort into her schoolwork, but I knew Hanna would never even think abut doing that. After Hanna had finished talking, the two girls sitting next to me seemed stunned.

"Nice fairy-tale, Han, now let's eat." I laughed during the silence.

Hanna rolled her eyes and heavily sighed, "Are you serious?"

"Yes, now let's stop talking about this because I'm bored of it."

The rest of the evening was spent eating, watching TV and talking. We avoided the entire subject of Alison; I must have scared them off it.

At around 10pm, I went home, not wanting to have to be around the girls anymore. I loved them more than anything but sometimes they became too much. I decided to have an early night and fell asleep as soon as I got home.

That night, I had a terrifyingly confusing dream. I was in a dark alleyway, walking intently to an unknown destination. Suddenly, a figure dressed in black pushed me against the brick wall to my left, pining my wrists above my head. It was –A. The only difference between how –A normally looked and how she looked right now was the fact that her hood was down, you could clearly see her face.

Alison.

She began to brutally attack me. She punched me, slapped me, elbowed me and kicked me down. I felt like I couldn't breathe. But when she was done, when I was bleeding onto the dirty concrete; she began to cry. Not just cry, sob. I couldn't understand why, she had done this to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and sobbed.

"Please, Em, I'm so sorry, please don't die, please don't die!" She screamed into my chest. I felt myself begin to drift away.

I woke up covered in a thin layer of my own sweat. Shaking my head, I decided to not analyse my dream, afraid of what it could mean. Instead, I checked the time on my phone. It was 6:39am, so at least I my dream didn't wake me up at some ridiculous time where I wouldn't be able to sleep. Groaning, I got out of bed and made my way to my bathroom. I took a shower, put on some clothes and did my hair and makeup. At around 7:30am, I went downstairs to have breakfast before I had to leave at 7:45, so I could be at school for 7:55, which was five minutes before school began.

While eating I checked my phone for any new messages. I saw I had received a text at 6:54am, while I was in the shower. Opening it, I saw it was from Paige.

 _Paige: Good morning, babe. You're not still mad at me, are you?_

I scoffed at the message, what was she thinking.

 _Emily: Of course I am._

Within seconds, I got a reply from her.

 _Paige: Well, I'm not going to apologise for what I said, it was the truth._

 _Emily: It was rude._

 _Paige: Don't act like you don't know the truth about her, Em._

 _Emily: Oh, so now it's just her?_

 _Paige: Mainly, but what I said goes for the lot._

 _Emily: I can't even talk to you right now. Bye._

And with that I swiped off the app. I hadn't really been thinking about what Paige had said to piss me off, I didn't want to. She really was becoming less and less pleasant, but she's the only person willing to put up with me, so I guess it's only fair I put up with her.

After quickly finishing off my French toast, I ran out of the house at 7:44, just on time. I opened my car door, got in, and drove to hell. In the car, a song by some artist called Adore De-something came on. The radio host said it was called 'I Adore You'. It was a decent song, something about it made me tell myself to remember the title; maybe it was the cool chorus.

As the song ended, I found myself in the parking lot of the school. I parked up and left to enter the dreaded building. As I was walking through the halls, I passed Alison as she was getting some stuff out of her locker. Something about her made me want to go over to her and start a conversation, but after last night I thought she probably wouldn't want to anyways. Whatever. I have better things to do than to talk to a psychotic stalker. She looked tired as well; she had bags under her eyes, which looked like they had been crying. I would have bet my life that she got a stain on her block hoodie.

I stopped at my locker and grabbed my shit out of it. I was happy I had History last thing, that way I could spend some of the day deciding what I would have said to Alison if we had to talk to each other. I hoped that I wouldn't have to talk to her at all, my dream from last night constantly creeping into my brain. I spent the day with my head down, getting on with work. I didn't want a second where I let my brain wonder to anything, I didn't want to know what it was thinking. It was in Art in fifth period, the one just before History, where my brain wondered. It wondered to what Hanna said, to Alison, to Paige, to –A, to my dream. For fucks sake why couldn't painting be more fucking interesting? The thing was, Alison was in this class, but she sat in a seat right at the front, her place was in between Noel and Aria. Alison always had her chair turned considerably to the left, in the direction where Noel sat. Spencer always tried to get Aria to listen in on their conversations, in case they accidentally said important –A information loudly, but Aria always just said they were just joking around for the whole lesson, and most of the time you could hear them wildly laughing from across the room, right at my seat in the back.

At the current moment in time, we had to paint abstract images of a beautiful city. I chose Pairs, along with basically everyone else in the class. Alison had also chosen Paris, but she finished it with half of the lesson left, so the teacher made her make another one, and judging from the looks of her paining, I would guess he chose NYC. I was incredibly jealous of Alison's painting skills, because to me the term 'abstract' meant: "Do your best, until you fuck up, then just fuck up in the same way all over it and it'll get you a C-". Funnily enough, that also happened to be Hanna's mentality, if looking at her work beside me was any indication.

"Is this abstract enough?" She asked, giggling slightly. I gave it a good look. Even if I was still kind of pissed off at her for last night, that did not mean I was going to blank her in art, we definitely needed each other in this class.

"Well," I started, "It's pretty shit, so the only way it would sell in an art auction would be to slap the word 'abstract' on there, then it would maybe sell."

"So, it's abstract?"

"It's certainly not normal." I laughed.

"Oh fuck off." She chuckled before getting back on with her work.

The rest of Art went by pretty quick, save for Noel and Alison getting shouted at by the teacher for being 'incredibly loud, obnoxious and disturbing the whole class'. After the teacher said this, Noel stood up, turned around, and said in his annoying, smart-ass voice, "I am so sorry that I have disturbed your education on this day, I will never forgive myself." And sat back down. Alison – of course – laughed. I just rolled my eyes. Cocky bastard, he's not even funny, I don't know why Alison's laughing so fucking much.

The bell rang, and I packed up my bag.

"Shit!" Hanna muttered looking in her bag.

"What?" I said.

"I don't have my fucking Physics homework and my teacher's gonna kill me. Ditch with me?"

"I can't, I have History with Alison." I explained.

"Oh, I know you do." It took me a few seconds before I got the joke. When I finally did, I glared at her before leaving the classroom. When I was walking out, I saw Noel and Alison right in front of me. In fact, I was close enough to hear their conversation.

"-gonna even bother doing that, what's the point?" Noel asked.

"To have fun." Alison answered.

Noel shook his head, "It just defeats the objective."

"Maybe that's not the objective?"

"But that's the whole challenge! I swear to god." I glared at Noel as he said this, not enjoying his attitude.

"I'm just gonna assume they changed the challenge."

"But, Ali, wouldn't they say if they did?"

"I think the rules have always been that, just that they weren't as creative as the others."

"You're probably right. I've gotta get to Physics now, later." Noel said, giving Alison a quick hug.

"Bye!" She laughed as the two went their separate ways. I decided I was gonna ask Aria what they were talking about in Art, to try and make some sense of that insane conversation. Something about rules and challenges and creativity. My head was spinning as I tried to think of an answer. I gave up on thinking about it the second I walked into History class. Miss Ballinger had her classic smile as she wrote something on the smartboard. I sat in my seat next to Alison as the class went silent.

"Okay, class. Today will be a study period. I've decided to set all your work for the rest of the year on the school website – along with when certain things are due, so you and your partner can both schedule when you're going to do certain things. Feel free to do it all at once, or the night before they're due, as long as I have them on the due date. When it comes to things like presentations in front of the class, you'll all be doing them in the same few lessons; so don't ask if you can do your presentation early. Feel free to use whatever you want, phones included, to begin working on what I've set, because most lessons from now on will mostly just be you guys working on the projects with your partners. Because I'm too lazy to teach." The class laughed and all turned to their partners and began working. Well wasn't this just nice, having to spend basically all my History lessons talking to Alison, just lovely.

"Alison," I said as I faced her, "Can we please just not mention what I said last-"

"It's fine," Interrupted Ali, "I'm just gonna do exactly what you said to do. Keep what I think of you separate from our work." And with that we began to work on the tasks in chronological order of when they were due. There was definitely an awkward air surrounding us, but I didn't think it got in the way of our work. Just like last night, I realised how well we both worked together. I knew that Alison was incredibly smart, so that was a major upside of being her partner, and she actually explained what we were writing, and made sure that I was constantly putting in enough, helping me get there slowly. It was nice to see her be sweet for once. We didn't rush through it, knowing we ages. It was also only our first lesson on the tasks, and I could see that Alison wanted me to thoroughly understand the basics before we moved on the more complicated theorising. This time around, I didn't bother putting up a fight with her on what conspiracy to use, or how a certain sentence should be worded. Mainly because I knew she knew exactly what she was doing, and I would just have to trust in her. But also partly because I just wanted to get on with it, and I was not in the mood to add more awkward air to the party.

With five minutes left, we decided to meet up at the Rosewood library tomorrow after school to work on our stuff more. Seeing as we didn't have History the next day, I was pretty happy I'd have 24 hours of not having to be too close to the intoxicating blonde. When the bell rang, I got a text from Hanna saying her Physics teacher gave her and Noel Khan an hour's detention for not doing their homework. I internally gagged at the mention of golden boy's name.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Alison sighed from her seat next to me, looking at her phone.

I decided to see what she meant, "Why?"

"Noel got himself an hours detention, now I have to wait for him."

"Hanna's got the same detention, she just texted me." As soon as I said it I knew what it meant. Alison and I were going to have to wait for the two of them together.

"Well, I've got an hour to kill, might as well go to the auditorium." She said, picking up her handbag and walking out of the class.

"What's in the auditorium?" I asked, walking after her.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Yeah, I would. That's why I asked."

Alison sighed and stopped in her tracks.

"There's a guitar and a microphone, that's enough to entertain me for years." She answered as she continued going towards the auditorium.

"Can I come? There's really no where else to go." I asked, maybe possibly kind of wanting to spend some time with the blonde that wasn't about the work we were doing, and it would be nice to hear her perform.

"There's the library." She huffed, annoyed at me for some reason.

I gave up on trying to spend time with her, her current attitude reminding me that she really was just a stone cold bitch.

"Oh, yeah, thanks. I'm gonna go there." I stumbled over the words slightly, and turned in the other direction towards the library.

For a second, I considered just leaving Hanna, surely the bitch could drive her car to my house, but then I decided against it. Instead, I thought of who Ali was currently waiting for. The thing between Ali and Noel was confusing to me because they acted just like best friends, but I knew they had a date Friday. I hoped that date went so badly that their whole friendship crashed and burned and Alison realised Noel was just an annoying, loud jock. Not saying that doesn't sound like the exact type of person someone like Ali should have been with, but it seemed harsh to wish someone as grim as Noel Khan on even –A herself.


	5. What Good's That Gonna Do?

**A/N: I'm so sorry that I've taken so long to upload this chapter; I've been busy with moving schools. Updates might be slow for the next few days, or maybe the next week, but then they should be pretty regular. I'm so excited for 7x18, especially after 7x17, which I personally hated. This is defiantly a filler chapter, but another new one will be posted straight after this one, so don't worry. What I need to know is what other couples you guys want in this story (Like Mike/Mona (if I decide Mona is alive or not, which you guys can also help me with) Hanna/Caleb, Hanna/Lucas, Spencer/Toby, Aria/Ezra, Aria/Noel, maybe even Aria/Holden) so if you want a particular couple together, please please please tell me (it doesn't have to be in this list!). Also please don't forget to leave a review; it helps me make this story better!**

After Emily walked away, I picked up my pace towards the auditorium, desperate to pick up a guitar and just play it until Noel got out of detention. The truth was, ever since Emily left my house the previous night, her harsh words had been the only thing playing in my head, it was permanently burned into my brain. I didn't want to have to talk to her when it wasn't completely necessary at the moment. That certainly did not mean I didn't want to repair our relationship, I just knew she would never want to, so I was not about to waste my time watering a dead plant.

Then there was Noel. I could tell Emily didn't like him either. Maybe thinks he's helping me in my role as –A, who knows what's going through her head. Noel and I had grown closer last night. I woke up, my head throbbing, at 11pm. I called him and asked him to come over, and we spent the night talking, telling each other things that neither of us had ever said aloud before. The most interesting being one that I wouldn't dare tell you all without his permission, that would just be cruel.

I felt myself falling back into one of the best friendships I had ever been a part of, we now knew everything about one another, and we stayed up all night talking, crying, laughing. Even if it did result in me looking a mess this morning, it was all worth it.

I finally got to the auditorium, going as fast as I could to get to the stage. I would've just settled for the choir room, but the school's Glee Club were already in there. They had tried on multiple occasions to persuade me to join, and I had been considering it. I loved the show Glee, so who knew; maybe I'd like the club. In fact, a load of teams and clubs had tried to make me join them lately. For instance, the Theatre Club really want me to join, and since they worked their schedule around the Glee Club (Since most of the people in the clubs were the same) I was considering joining both. And then the Dance Team told me that they would really like to see me become a member, along with the Cheerleaders trying to recruit me. The Track Team did ask me to come to try-outs next Tuesday, and I had decided to go. Ultimately, maybe emerging myself in clubs and teams everyday was what I needed.

Grabbing the guitar, I put it on my knee and began strumming it, singing along to whatever song my hand decided it wanted to play. I spent the entire hour in there, letting all my worries fade away.

After ages of just playing, I realised the hour was almost up. Clearing my throat, I decided to play one more song. I played "Oceans" by Seafret. I didn't really know why I decided that would be the last song I played; I guess I just liked it.

When I finished the song, I had to sprint to the detention hall to make it in time. But when I got there, I still had five minutes. I noticed Emily, on the floor, with her knees under her chin. She was slumped up against the lockers. Momentarily, I wondered how long she had been there; maybe she had been there ever since our conversation; or maybe she had gone to the library, and just gotten back before me.

She just sat there. Not moving, not looking around, not occupying herself. She just looked straightforward and kept her body still. After a moments thought, I decided not to go up to her. She defiantly would not want to talk to me about anything other than History class, so why even bother. I sighed as I sat down on the bench outside of the class.

 _4 minutes._

Emily picked up her phone and checked a notification. It made her angrily growl and throw her phone into the locker opposite to where she was sitting. The phone was – somehow – fine.

 _3 minutes._

I head the detention teacher shout at Hanna; she was chewing gum. She had to stand up to put the gum into the trash, which was right next to the door, and then sat back down.

 _2 minutes._

 _Buzz buzz_ Emily's phone went off again, and she quickly checked the screen before huffing, standing up, throwing it on the floor and jumping on it. "Fuck off!" She muttered. She still somehow hadn't noticed my presence.

 _1 minute._

She looked at her now smashed up phone, and dropped to her knees. She picked up the pieces and put them in her pocket. _What good's that gonna do?_ I thought to myself.

 _End of detention._

Noel was the first person to leap out of the room. The second he got out he hugged me.

"That was so fucking long. Thanks for waiting."

"I went to the auditorium, I could give a shit about you."

"Funny."

As Hanna ran up to Emily, I saw the brunette look at Noel and I, and I could've sworn she glared. Probably at Noel. It was a known fact she hated Noel. The pair turned the corner before I could read more into the look.  
"So," Noel looked at me, "What should we do today, Ali?"

I thought for a moment, "Let's go to mine and watch Drag Race."

"What season?"

"You can chose."

"We're watching season 6, for Laganja." I raised an eyebrow.

"You can watch it for Laganja, I'm watching for Courtney, Adore and Bianca. I love my abc's."

"Party." He replied in his most serious Adore voice. And with that, I cracked up laughing. It took me a good minute to stop.

"Okay let's go. My car or yours?"

"Let's go in separate cars. I'm not driving you home."

"Bitch." Then we left.

About 4 hours later, Noel and I were sat on my bed eating sweet and salty popcorn.

"April did so shit in the rehearsal, I don't know why I thought she wouldn't go home this episode." Noel said as he stuffed a massive handful of popcorn into his mouth.

I looked at him with furrowed eyebrows, "Who did you think would go home, then?"

"Trinity. She can't do one simple move for shit."

"Hey, I love Trinity." I slapped him on the arm.

"Me too, but she can't dance, Ali." He laughed.

"Fuck off, it was a really hard and confusing move." I giggle.

We continued to watch and banter, not aware of what was going on next door…


	6. What The Fuck?

**A/N: I'm so sorry this chapter took agesssss to put up; I've just moved schools so I've been busy with that. This chapter is going to be from Emily's point of view. I think I'm gonna alternate chapters now, having on be Ali then the next be Emily, then just repeat that. Please don't forget to leave a review, and thank you so much for reading. Now please enjoy chapter 6!**

"What the fuck are they doing?" I huffed, looking at the pair from Spencer's window. I'd been watching them for the better part of two hours now.

"Em, stop being creepy and watching them through the windows, just leave it alone. Come sit down and paint Hanna's nails." Aria told me as she attempted to move me, but I stayed in place. I still didn't really know why the thought of those two being together irked me so much – it just did. I wondered if they were dating. I doubted they were, I would've heard it at school. I remember in freshman year everyone thought Ali and Noel were going to date, or were dating, so I'm sure everyone would be talking about it.

Unless… They were secretly dating. I mean, they looked quite couple-y right now. All huddled up in bed, their hands touching every time one of them went to get popcorn, laughing and smiling. It was a total 180 from what both of them acted like at school.

"Em, pleaseeeee, my nails look gross." Hanna complained, from her spot lying down on her stomach on Spencer's bed.

"I'm busy."

"Emily," Spencer begun "If you wanna go join the apparent –A team, just go ask, I'm sure they'd say-"

"Piss off Emily, we're too busy giving each other oral to be –A!" Hanna finished.  
The three burst out laughing and giggling. I glared at them. You see, they were hell-bent on the fact that neither Ali nor Noel were –A, and that instead they were fucking each other. I – of course – thought the opposite.

"Shut up, like I'd wanna be a part of that bullshit."

"Wow, you're so stubborn." Spencer laughed.

I rolled my eyes, "You literally have no concrete evidence that Alison isn't –A."

"You have even less evidence that she is!" Aria sighed dramatically.

"Why wouldn't she be? She's 100% evil!"

Hanna quickly replied, "Jesus, Em. So she didn't date you in freshman year, get over it!"

"That is definitely not why I hate her."

Hanna scoffed, "You don't hate her-"

"Stop the comedy act Hanna."

Spencer butted in, "Let's change the subject, perhaps."

I sighed, "Fine. Now, give me those nails Han." I said as I sat down next to her and began painting her nails a beautiful baby blue colour. We didn't talk for a while, apart from Spencer and Aria. Those two were sitting on Spencer's chairs next to the window, working on an English essay together. My head was still on different things, mainly Alison. I didn't know why the girls thought they knew how I felt, but that didn't matter. Because they were wrong. I knew I was right about Alison; I had to be.

When I had finished painting Hanna's nails, she made me paint her toes. I didn't really get why – she wouldn't ever have to be barefoot or wear shoes that show her toes soon, seeing as it's winter. It's still snowing outside for fucks sake. But whatever, I painted them anyways. In the background, Spencer and Aria began arguing over what some metaphor meant.

"Listen, this book is full of metaphors, and I've read this book more thoroughly than you have."

"Doesn't matter if you have, Spencer, I'm dating someone with a masters degree in English literature. I know what this means."

"No, you're wrong. You don't have to read between the lines, the answer's right there."

I shared a look with Hanna as the two continued bickering.

"No, you have to look deeper."

"It's really not that deep. It's exactly what is says, it literally explains it."

Aria sighed, "I wanna get an A Spence. Are you sure we shouldn't read deeper."

"Yes, it's fine. We're gonna get an A, even if I'm wrong. It's a massive book, there's so much to go over and this is just a tiny sentence. Now shut up and continue." Spencer laughed and the two went back to quietly whispering. To be honest, I couldn't care less about what book or quote they were talking about. But apparently Hanna cared.

"What book are you two studying right now?" She asked as I continued painting her nails.

Aria looked up from their shared laptop and answered her, "The Fault In Our Stars. Mrs Elphick says because it's kind of an intellectual book, it'll really help us to learn it. But we all know by now that the school is just letting the seniors have fun."

I thought about all of the things I had been recently studying in my lessons and I realised that she was right, "Defiantly, I mean, half the things I'm learning right now barely have anything to do with the subject I'm in."

Hanna nodded, "In Geography, we're learning about where famous people came from and learning a song listing all of their homelands. I feel like I'm in elementary school."

"Well," Aria said, "we do have Mr Cuff for Geography, he let's all his classes' just mess around. I doubt he actually knows a lot about geography."

"I don't know about you but I'd rather learn a song than have to memorize everything there is to know about grid references and co-ordinates." I laughed.

Aria and Hanna shared a strange look with each other before bursting out laughing. I finished Hanna's final toenail and packed all of the stuff away.

"What?" Spencer asked.

"Nothing, it's just, you two are stuck with Mr Sprote. I totally forgot you had to learn about co-ordinates." Hanna answered as her and Aria laughed more. Shaking my head, I pulled out my algebra books and a notebook and laid down on my stomach on the bed. Recently, even though most subjects weren't really sticking to hard stuff, or even normal stuff, I had been finding school extremely difficult. Especially all the STEM subjects. So for the remaining hours I spent at Spencer's, I just stared at the book, not even understanding the basics enough to attempt a question. Which pissed me off, because if I continued getting F's and D's in all my STEM classes, I wouldn't be able to graduate.  
When I got home that night, I fell asleep with ease, hoping Paige wouldn't text me by morning. I just couldn't be asked to deal with her right now. I was happy I managed to make it through the night without any kind of strange dream, which I was more than happy about.  
Hours later, I heard the alarm on my phone blaring loudly at me. Groaning, I opened my eyes and turned it off. It was already 6:55, so I ran as quickly as my tired body could carry me into the bathroom and took what I expected to be the world's quickest shower. By 7:20 I was somehow decent enough to go to school.

As I sat down to eat my breakfast I took a worried peek at my phone. The only message I had was – surprisingly – from Alison.

 _Alison: You still okay to meet at the library after school?_

I immediately responded 'yes' because I knew I needed to talk to her, and if she were nice enough, maybe I'd ask her to help me with my other subjects. Only if she was nice enough. And I truly doubted she would be.

She didn't reply back, but she saw the message. I grabbed my school bag from next to me and made my way out of the house.

It was a nice day. Snow was subtly and slowly falling out of the light grey sky. A beautiful blanket of snow covered the ground, although it was only about two inches. But for some reason, I still hated it. I just wasn't a fan of winter. It was just too damn cold. I always just wanted to go to the beach, have a BBQ, go swimming, do summer things. I much preferred the heat, defiantly. Luckily, the snow didn't stop my car from getting started and making it's way to school. When I arrived at my destination, I made quick work of getting side the school building before I froze.

The school was heated, which I quickly became very grateful for. As soon as I walked into the building I saw Alison and Noel by her locker, laughing, once again. I decided I wanted to hear what was so fucking funny, so I went over to Hanna's locker (which was to the left of Alison's), opened it and began to pretend like I was actually doing something. Then I began to listen.

"Okay, but is she sexy though?" Noel asked Alison. What the fuck?

"It doesn't matter! Noel, she's gonna do it!" She said as she put a book into her locker.

"Yeah, but do you want her to?"  
"They're all amazing, I wouldn't be pissed if any of them did. But I'm one hundred per cent team minty fresh."

Noel laughed, "That's not her name, so stupid." He shook his head.

Ali then began animatedly singing/rapping, "I'm minty fresh, but it aint for free!"

"Don't start, you know I love that song. Anyways, I'm team trintastic, plastic, injectable realness. I love a bitch that says she's the shit and knows she's the shit and acts like she's the shit."

Alison laughed, "Noelth Kahn-"

"Defiantly not my name-"

"You just like staring at her ass. And that's okay, because spoiler alert: we all stare at her ass. I pause that shit and just look at it, that's a lot of money, admire it."

"Okay," He sighed, "You may have a point."

She made a gesture of celebration and proclaimed, "Yes!"

"But, Alison, moving on. I have found you a potential mate." He raised his eyebrows at her. Since when did Alison want to date someone? Weren't Alison and Noel supposed to be going on a date Friday? I listened closer.

"No, no, no, no, no. I'm not interested." Alison refused, dramatically shaking her head.

"C'mon. It's time you gave up with old news and try it with someone new and nice, who cares about you."

"I really don't want to." She said seriously.

Noel gave her a look, and she gave him a look back.

"Fine." She gave up, "Who is it?"

"She goes to Woodard. She's on the cheer team; she's in the musical theatre club and wants to go to Yale. Her name's Ava Harding, she's a senior, she's into all the same stuff as you-"

She cut him off, "Noel, she sounds lovely. And I'm sure I'd love her, but no. I'm not giving up. Fuck it. If it takes me a lifetime, I'll spend my life trying. Because that girl, she's a fantasy, it'd be too easy, I can tell. I don't like easy. I want a challenge. And this is a challenge. But thank you, and trust me, I'll find you someone." She said with her hand stroking up his arm.

"I wish I could just date you. Life would be so easy."  
"There's easy again. No thanks. And Noel, we did date, and we hated it." She smiled and shut her locker.

"I wonder why." The two smiled at each other. Noel grabbed Ali's hand and held it as they walked off.

For a few minutes, I just kind of stood there, puzzled. Slowly, I started to put together what I had heard. First of all, I was shocked that Ali and Noel weren't in fact dating, for some reason I felt lighter knowing that. But, was Alison gay? Noel was trying to set her up with a girl. And who is the 'challenge' for Alison, anyways. And when did those two date. Closing Hanna's locker, I walked away with only three words in my head: "What the fuck?"


	7. A Ploy To Murder You

**A/N: Hi guys! I'm sorry this story hasn't been so active lately, but I promise the updates will be a lot more regular now. So as long as you guys keep telling me you want more chapters, I'll write them! I'm gonna try and get this up by Sunday, so if I have well done for me. Thank you all so much for reading this. This chapter is dedicated to the users Leapyearbaby29 and Prettylittlecarmen, who've definiety given this story the most support, so thank you two so much! I've been trying to make these longer for all of you, so please tell me what kind of size you want these chapters to be, since I have no idea. Please don't forget to REVIEW, and I hope you all enjoy chapter 7!**

I walked into Art that morning a little bit late. Thank God that class took at least ten minutes to settle down. You see, Noel and I decided to just kind of explore the school before classes started, and we kind of got lost. But we were only five minutes late, and the class were still just shuffling around, Mrs Baker still sitting at her desk, not looking up yet. Aria saw me walking up to her and smiled at me. In response, I glared at the cunt. Bitch thought I was –A, didn't she? But perhaps, what I'd heard in the library had changed her mind. No. Doubt it. Just in case, I changed my look to a smile. Great, I look fake now, don't I? Noel went to sit down next to me, when the teacher stopped him.

"Noel, Jeremy," She told Noel and the boy who sat next to him, "I need you two to swap places with Hanna and Emily."

My eyes widened.

"Why?" I exclaimed.

"Don't be rude, Miss. DiLaurentis." I should also probably mention this teacher hated me. I was the only student she called by their surname, she always shouted at me, always made me do extra work, and sometimes after the whole class were being loud, I would be the only one who had to be silent. But I knew why she hated me. In freshman year, she was also my art teacher, and I usually played pranks on her with CeCe, because she taught CeCe as well, and we both hated her.

"Why can't Noel and Jeremy stay?" I asked, more than annoyed.

The old teacher huffed, "Because you're distracting them both, Miss DiLaurentis. Constantly, every single lesson."

"Ughhhhhhhh, fucks sake."

"Language!"

"I couldn't give a fuck. Let these two stay." I snapped as I stopped caring about the rules.

"Do you want a detention?"

"Go ahead, I'm not busy after school."

I heard a voice behind me shout, "Yes, you are."

It was Hanna. Then, I remembered I was meeting Emily at the library. Fuck.

"See, Miss DiLaurentis. I suggest you behave."

Putting on a sickly fake and sweet smile, I responded, "Of course, ma'am."

The teacher made the four swap seats, and went back to her desk. Did all these teachers have a personal vendetta against me? Two fucking lessons sitting next to Emily. They definitely want my grades to drop.

"I didn't choose to sit here." Emily muttered, after at least thirty minutes of me blanking her, painting my watercolour copy of the work we did Tuesday.

"I know. If it was your choice, you'd have me locked away somewhere where I get beaten daily." I said with so much malice, I could see her cringe in the corner of my eye.

"You know," Emily began, "I don't hate you as much as you think."

"You hate me more."

She rolled her eyes, "No, I mean, don't get me wrong – I do hate you. But not as much as everyone thinks I do."

Scrunching my eyebrows together I turned towards her and tilted my head, "What are you expecting to get out of this conversation?"

Emily sighed, "I need your help."

"That's obvious."

"Shut up. This is why I hate you."

"I don't exactly need you to like me."  
"Be fucking quiet. I need you to help me with my grades."

"Your history grade already went up a sublevel after a few days. I'm not sure how much more help you need."

"It did?" She asked, looking surprised.

"Yeah, I checked. Mine's still the same."

I squinted slightly, still incredibly confused.

"Anyways, I need your help in other subjects, like math and science and all that."

"I wouldn't have guessed you wanted to spend even more time with me than you already have to." I raised my eyebrow at her.

"I don't want to, I need to. It's either that or my mom said she's getting me a tutor."

"Well, I hope that tutor is lovely, because I'm not being used like that by you, just for a grade." And with that, I turned my body back to my work.

"Please, Alison."

"No, because we all know that you think incredibly low of me. Why should I help you? Give me a genuine reason, Emily." I raised my eyebrow about as high as I could get it and stared her deep in the eyes.

"Because then you could show me who you really are now." She replied sincerely.

"Well, it's a shame you only suddenly care about that when you want something from me."

Emily looked desperate, "Please, Alison. I need you, badly."

From next to her, I could've sworn I head Hanna mutter something along the lines of "I know you do." But that was a worry for another day.

"Just ask Paige. You know, your girlfriend. I heard she gets amazing grades. Sandy Whitmore told me she was even graduating early." Emily's eyes bulged and before she got a chance to even think of a reply, Hanna leaned over the desk.

"You see," Hanna butted in, looking amused, "Emily and Paige aren't seeing eye to eye right now. They are still somehow dating-" She turned to Emily while she finished her sentence, "even though all they do is argue and ignore each other." Hanna smirked.

"Han, let's not get into this now."

"No, lets. I'm bored." The other blonde wined.

"Do your work and stay out of my business." Emily turned around to face me a little bit more and continued, "Please Alison."

"Don't do it, Ali. It's probably a ploy to murder you. Because you oh-so-obviously killed Mona. And Emily and Mona were such good friends." A sarcastic Hanna found her way back into the conversation.  
"You wanna kill me? I'm definitely not helping you now." I laughed dramatically, but Emily thought I was serious.

"Hanna, really? You're such a bitch!" Emily moaned and flicked paint at Hanna. It was only very pale watercolour, and you couldn't even see a drop of it on Hanna. In response, Hanna reached under the table.

Huffing, Emily shot Hanna a confused look, "What are you doing? Hey!"

Hanna shot out from under the desk, Emily's new phone in her hand. I wondered how she had gotten a new one so quickly, after breaking her old one less than twenty-four hours ago. I looked around and tried to find the teacher, but I remembered she left the room ten minutes ago to go deal with something. So professional.  
Emily folded her arms, "You know what, Hanna, go for it. I have nothing to hide."

Hanna's face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she began going through the phone. After a silent minute, Hanna looked like she had found what she was looking for.

"Aha! What's this, Em?"  
Emily looked at her, worry filling her eyes, "What?"

Hanna begun reading, "Message from Paige, yesterday, while I was in detention: 'Emily, you have to forgive me, I don't understand why you could possibly prefer them over me.' What does that mean?" Emily jumped up and began fighting for her phone. The blonde ran to the font of the classroom, just on the other side of the teacher's desk, which was touching our desk. Hanna propped herself up on her elbows and sat down on the teacher's chair. Luckily, because there was no space between the teacher's desk and mine, our conversation remained private.

"Hanna," Aria muttered, finally looking up from her work next to me, "What on Earth are you doing?"

"Hanna, I'm warning you-" Emily threatened, but it was too late, Hanna kept on reading.

"Hey, Emily. You only got two notifications yesterday before you smashed your phone to pieces. Does that mean whatever Hanna's about to read out was the final straw?" I added, hoping to wind her up.

"Yeah, but, Hanna's not gonna read it."

"Yes I fucking am. Okay, where was I. Oh here. From Paige, 'Emily, stop being dumb. They're all just fucking stupid. You need me, and I don't want you near any of them. Stop hanging out with them, don't even fucking go near them. You deserve to be with me and my friends, not those disgusting evil cunts, especially Alison, for fucks sake.' Wow, someone's mad at us." Hanna, Aria and I laughed.

"Sorry, Emily. Disgusting evil cunts can't tutor you." I giggled as the bell rung. Emily looked like she was in a state of shock, and she was glaring hard at Hanna.

By the time I had packed up all my stuff, Emily was still glaring at the door Hanna had left through. As I left, I decided to test my limits, and put my hand on her shoulder, leaned down, and whispered right into her ear (what some might describe as seductively) "See you in history, Em." I smirked and left, not before feeling a quick shiver run down her spine. I had this in the bag.

Noel had already fucked off to his next lesson, so I made my way leisurely to mine, which was algebra. As I was walking, I remembered the teacher said there would be a change in seating plans and I silently sent a prayer to all the gods I could recall at that moment that Spencer would be my partner, because I needed to know how she felt about me (and she was the smartest in the class). And I sent an extra two prayers that it wouldn't be Paige. I just wanted one not fucked up seating plan, please.

As it turned out, Paige sat directly behind me, and Spencer was my partner, so that was alright. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

"How was art?" Spencer whispered while we were getting on with some formula work.

"It was interesting. Emily wants me to tutor her in all the subjects, even though she still hates me, Hanna and Aria don't like Paige, if their actions say anything, and Paige called us 'disgusting evil cunts' yesterday, which lead to Emily smashing her phone."

Spencer nodded her head, "Sounds about normal."

I laughed, and then whispered back, "Spencer, do you think I'm –A?"

Spencer became serious all of a sudden, and looked at me, "Do you want my honest answer?" I nodded. "No, I don't think you're –A. Not anymore, I just think we unfairly put you and your actions under a magnifying glass of pessimism. Emily's the only one know who still believes that you're –A."

"Really?" I asked, shocked that the rest of them now knew I was innocent.

"Yeah, but don't mind her. I think she might just have trust issues with you. If you want to be close to her again, just be your true, authentic self. She'll see that you're not –A. Oh and Ali, she could really use your help to tutor her."

"What if she just wants to use me for grades?"

"Oh, trust me, she does. But it's a way for you to show her your true self."

"That's what she said." I thought aloud, thinking back to Emily and I's conversation in Art.

"Just think about it." Spencer ended the conversation and we both went back to doing our work. I did think about it, and maybe they were right. I did at some point want to be friends with Emily, and more. But, was this the right way to go about it? Making her think I was a pushover? God, I wished my mom were still here. She would help me; she always did. I told my mom a lot more than you would have thought I did, and she always gave me advice. Whenever I ended up taking that advice, it was always the best outcome. And when I ended up not taking that advice, well, I ran away for two years.

After that, the rest of the day went by slowly, until Caroline Wilson finally convinced me to join the musical theatre club.

"Alison!" She shouted as I was walking out of food tec with Aria, who I had talked to all lesson, and she told me she wanted to be my friend again (which I couldn't be happier about). Aria glanced at me and asked who it was.

"Alison, hi." Caroline said as she finally caught up to us.

"Oh, hi Caroline." I greeted sweetly, because I did actually like her.

"Hi Aria!" She said with a massive smile.

Aria looked up and gave a cute grin, "Hello."

"Ali, have you thought anymore about joining musical theatre? We're putting on a musical soon, and we would all absolutely love for you to be in it."

Aria looked interested at this, "What musical?"  
"Grease. Aria, would you like to join as well? We've always wanted to ask you, but you seemed so busy all the time."

We both looked at each other with a knowing glint in our eyes. We both knew what each other were going to say. If we had learnt anything about each other freshman year, it was that we both fucking loved Grease. Every sleepover when it was just us two, we would watch it. And if we were lucky, the other girls would agree to put it on at group sleepover.

At the same time, we both replied eagerly, "Yes!"

Caroline looked shocked. "Really?"

"Yes! We both love Grease, and musical theatre!" Aria squeaked, bouncing up and down slightly on her toes.

"When are the auditions?" I asked.

"Tomorrow at lunch in the auditorium. Pick at least three possible characters for yourself that you would like to play. We'll give you some dialogue and you'll say it with other people who want roles as characters in the scenes. And prepare a song. Each. See you two tomorrow!" And she skipped off.  
"Well, this is going to be fun." Aria and I grinned happily at each other as we walked to the cafeteria.

We began talking about the musical.

"What three roles are you going to try out for?" She asked me as we turned a corner.

"Hmmm, let's think. Rizzo, Sandy, and… Danny." She giggled.

"I see you more as a Putzie or Kenickie." We both laughed.

"Funny. My real third choice is gonna be Cha-Cha. But I really want Rizzo, she is so fucking cool. Who do you want?"

She thought about it for a second. "I want Frenchy, Patty or Sandy."

"You'd be such a good Sandy! Oh my god, you should definitely make it your first choice."

"I feel like I'd just end up disappointed." She sighed and looked down at the ground.

"No! You would be disappointed if you didn't go for it, Ar." I told her while I put an arm around her shoulders.

"I hate it when you're right." She replied, shaking her head.

We talked about it a little bit more as we made our way to the cafeteria, and when we got there we were the first in line. Aria got lasagne, which smelled amazing. But I got carbonara, and we shared three pizza slices.

Aria gestured to the empty ten-seat table by the door, "Let's sit here." I complied and took a seat next to her. Soon, Spencer and Hanna strolled in, and got their food. Hanna had a whole pepperoni pizza, and Spencer had the same pasta as me. They sat down opposite us.

At her first bite, Hanna let out the most pleasure filled moan I'd ever heard (apart from the one's I had made Emily do in my bed a few months ago, but let's not mention those right now) and groaned out, "I fucking love Italian Thursdays. They literally have everything, fuck this is better than sex! Hey Ali, what do you think?"

I looked up from my pasta, which was amazing. I thought the cliché was that school food was supposed to be repulsive? Whatever, its not like Rosewood High is particularly known for its clichés.

"Well, it's really good, but I've had sex better."

"Literally impossible, Alison. You were definitely having the worlds most imaginative wet dream." Hanna concluded, shoving another slice of pizza into her mouth. I'm not going to lie; I thought she was going to choke on the food half the time.

"Who did you have sex with that was possibly better than this food?" Aria asked.

"It's 'whom' Ar." Spencer corrected.

Hanna rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Who was it, Ali?"

As if on queue, Emily suddenly took a seat to my left. Why would she choose to sit next to me? There was a seat next to Hanna, Aria and Spencer she could have occupied, for fucks sake.

"What are we talking about?" Emily asked, as Hanna handed Emily half of the pizza and a coke she had hidden somewhere in her bag. I guessed this was kind of system they had.

Hanna quickly answered her question by saying, "Alison's sex life."

The swimmer's eyes widened considerably, "Oh. Why?"

"She recons she's had sex more pleasurable than the food. Is that even possible?" Hanna exclaimed.

"It's possible, I have." Emily shrugged.

"Bullshit, Paige could give someone about the same amount of pleasure as nails on a chalkboard." Hanna said and I snorted.

"No, not with Paige."

Spencer looked up, "Maya, really?"

"No, not with Maya. And before you ask, not Samara, either."

Hanna 'ooo'ed, "Scandalous, Fields. With who?"

Spencer turned to Hanna, "Whom."

"Be quiet."

"It doesn't matter." Emily muttered.

For a moment, I wondered if she was talking about me. Believe me, the way she reacted that night, it was definitely possible she was talking about me. But I was obviously not going to ask her anytime soon. Especially since she kind of thinks I'm –A. Hanna turned her focus back on me.

"Ali, wanna share whom gave you a good fuck?"

"I don't kiss and tell." I winked at her, feeling myself slip fully back into this group, apart from the awkward air between Emily and I.  
We spent the rest of lunch talking and teasing each other, laughing loudly. I felt happy. Finally. When we had all finished eating, the other girls apart from Emily and I made their way to their last class. Emily came up to me while I put some stuff I was showing Spencer a few minutes previous into my bag.

"Alison," She begun, "Listen, I know we don't like each other, but, I really do need you. Please."

I let out an overly dramatic long sigh, "Fine. Bring all your shit to the library after school." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Paige looking at us, and I smirked. "Come on, we have history now." I told Emily and took her hand, pulling her along the hallways. Paige glared at our joint hands and I just held on tighter, knowing it would be over before I could even remember all the small details. That did not stop me from holding on until we got to class. I let go when we entered the door, not wanting to be the one she let go of.

I made my way to my seat at the back of the class, staring at all the people in the seats in front of me. When I got to the back, I slowly pulled out my chair and put my bag down, but left my phone in my hand. Just in case I got bored. Emily was not far behind me, and mirrored my exact motions. Minus the phone part. Miss Ballinger was obviously late, because the lesson was supposed to start five minutes ago. One of the nerdier kids in the class stood up and went to the teacher's desk. He shuffled around it for a little bit, and then found a piece of paper. No one else was really paying attention to him; they were all just talking to one another while they waited.

"Guys!" Kevin – the boy – shouted after he read the A4 sheet. Everyone looked up at him. It was then I noticed something; he kind of looked like Blaine Anderson from Glee. I laughed, remembering he was also in musical theatre club. Oh the irony. "The lesson plan here says it's another lesson where we just get the laptops out and continue with all the set tasks." I wasn't exactly shocked. I mean that's all we had been doing since the fucking tasks were set. Glancing at Emily, I silently communicated for her to get us a laptop. After a few eyebrow wiggles and head tilt, she got up and went to the laptop trolley. While she was waiting for everyone to get out of the way, I couldn't help but stare at her ass in the tight denim jeans she was wearing. What? She was hot. I bit my lip and let my mind wander back to that night in my bed.

 _Emily's breathing got heavier as she ripped off my shirt, leaving me in my bra, "You're so hot, Ali."_

 _I moaned as her lips met my neck again, sucking hard at my pulse point. Snaking my arms around her toned body, I grabbed her ass in those tiny running shorts and squeezed hard._

 _"_ _Oh god, Ali." Emily whimpered breathily._

I was taken out of my thoughts when Emily dropped the laptop onto the table in front of me and sat down.

"Okay, we were on task five I think." She said as she opened up the laptop.

"Yeah, I remember that." I replied, shaking my head to try and get the image of Emily naked out of my head. I was really going to need a cold shower when I got home. As if we had rehearsed it a thousand times, the two of us slipped into a now familiar rhythm of getting the work done. The current task we where working on was to write a full two thousand word essay, including pictures, about a conspiracy with dramatic links to history.

"Hmmmm, I have literally no idea." Emily said, deep in thought about what we could do.

Of course, the answer came straight into my head, now was such a perfect time to finally do this one, "The Mandela Effect!"

"Huh?" Emily breathed, tilting her head and doing her cute little confused eyebrow thing.

"If you think about it, the whole thing is about history, which is exactly what this is asking for. Please let us do this." I begged.  
"I just don't know what The Mandela Effect is." Emily revealed and shrugged. I widened my eyes.

"What? How can you– look it up right now." I commanded, and she did. We ended up not doing any work that lesson; instead we just research the conspiracy. Half way through, I got out my earphones and plugged them into the computer. We both took one end and put them into our ears to watch some videos about it. To make things more comfortable, we moved our chairs closer together so that they were touching each other. Emily scooted even closer, so that our thighs were right up against each other's. Our arms were awkwardly meshed together, until she decided to move her arm so that her hand rested high up my bare thigh, her fingertips just under my skirt. My breathing quickened and I tried to concentrate on the video. I wondered if she was aware of what she was doing to me right now, and if she was getting some type of kick out of it. She was such a tease.


	8. No Reason To Leave

To be honest, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I should not have put my hand on her thigh, but oh lord am I thankful I did. For some fucked up reason, it was nice to tease someone, especially who teased me for so long. I definitely did not want this to go anywhere, but after being reminded of our steamy hook-up at lunch, I felt like I needed to let off some steam. And I got the exact reaction I was hoping for. Her breathing noticeably sped up, and she stiffened. I moved my hand higher, but still focused on the video, which was actually really interesting.  
From what I had learnt as this point about the Mandela Effect was that we were basically definitely doing it for our final project. It was so interesting, and you could interpret it in a load of different ways. I personally thought it linked into the multiple universes theory, because that sounded plausible. Maybe I just thought that because that's what Alison believed, it was easier to just agree with her, it was basically the most sure-fire way to raise my grade.

My hand went higher. At this point, I was nearly all the way under her short skirt. It was so wrong; I was with Paige, and Alison was –A. But I didn't really care. Glancing at Alison, I saw her hand gripping the edge of the table and smirked.

By the time there was only three minutes left of the lesson, my hand was so far up her skirt that the edge of my thumb was up against the edge of her panties. I tried to avoid getting caught by Miss Ballinger (who walked into the classroom halfway through the lesson and said "I don't need to explain myself to you lot." and sat down at her desk) All I could say was, her centre was radiating heat, and I could feel how wet she was. I knew she would react, but I had no idea she would react like this. I bet she hadn't had sex since that night, that's why she was so turned on. Swiftly, I cupped her centre and squeezed. She loudly gasped. Lucky the whole class where talking anyways, so no one heard. She begun slowly grinding herself into my hand and whimpering slightly, she was still looking right ahead at the YouTube video. I raised my eyebrows and smirked, not knowing why I was enjoying this so much. For some reason, I wanted to lean down and put a kiss on her exposed neck, but I forced that thought away.

The bell went. I pulled my hand away so quickly the only way you would have known it was down there was the stickiness Alison left on my palm, which I didn't bother cleaning off. We both packed away and made our way out of the classroom. When we were in the hallway, I noticed that Alison's cheeks were incredibly flushed. I guess I am just that good.

"I need to stop off at my locker and get all my books out, since we're doing every subject, right?" Alison asked, her breathing still slightly off.

"Yeah, that would be great." I shrugged, acting as if I had not just had my hand at her vagina. "Also, can we go to mine so I can get all of my books out?"  
She smiled at me and replied with, "Sure."  
Alison walked a few steps in front of me, and I walked a bit slower than her. It gave me some time to look at her. Truly look at her. Not as –A or as 'dead girl' or 'queen bee', but as Ali. The girl I grew up with. I remembered that girl.

 _I giggled, "Ali, you can't do that!"_

 _10-year-old Alison smiled and laughed, "It's not like I would, Em."_

 _I plopped myself down next to Ali. We both were at the end of her bed, lying on our stomachs. Alison was writing a story for English class. It had to be 300 words! It had taken me a whole week to even get to 200, and it was meant to be in by the next day._

 _"_ _Em, you should really get on with your story, I wouldn't want Miss Evans to get mad at you." Ali suggested, and I nodded. I got my notepad and pen out of my bag and started writing. The teacher said we could either write a romance or an action story; I chose action. Mine was about a group of gangsters who flew around robbing people on their dragons. When I showed it to my dad, he said it was really unique and creative. But Ali chose romance, which I noticed a load of the girls in our class did. I couldn't understand why; romance was boring. We both fell into silence, writing quickly._

 _After a while, Ali sighed and put down her pencil down._

 _"_ _What's wrong?" I asked innocently, tilting my head._

 _Ali looked up at me, "I need to write a kiss now, because it's the end of the story, but I've never kissed anyone. So I don't know what I'm supposed to say, or how to explain it." She looked upset._

 _Suddenly, an idea came into my head. She needed to know what a kiss felt like, and I wanted to understand the big deal about romance, "Maybe, I could kiss you. Just so you know what to write."_

 _She thought about it for a moment, "You would really help me like that?"_

 _"_ _Of course, Ali. You're my best friend."_

 _"_ _Okay, but, I don't really know how to do it." She said nervously._

 _"_ _It's okay. I've seen it done a load on TV, and my parents kiss in front of me all the time." I told her, getting a bit closer._

 _Ali looked down, "My parents never kiss in front of me."_

 _"_ _Just do what I do." I said, leaning in to kiss her. I became really nervous, but I knew I wanted to do this. When we got a few centimetres apart, I closed my eyes and told her to do the same. A few seconds later, our lips met. It wasn't awkward or disgusting, like I expected it to be; it was actually amazing. I began to really slowly move my lips against hers, and she mirrored my actions. The kiss stayed soft and slow; the two of us only adding a slight bit of pressure at times. I could feel Ali smiling into the kiss. We kissed for what I felt like was around two minutes, and those two minutes were beautiful. After I finally pulled away, I looked deeply into Ali's bright blue eyes and smiled._

 _"_ _Wow," She breathed, her cheeks flushed, "That was… Thank you, Em."_

 _"_ _That's okay, I hope it helped." And with that I began writing again, not being able to get the kiss out of my mind. When I leaned over Ali's shoulder and read her work, I saw the sentence 'the kiss was the most incredible feeling in the world'. I didn't know why, but seeing that made me extra happy._

It felt strange, to remember that day. Alison was my first ever kiss, and boy did she make it memorable. Walking behind her, I began to wonder why. Why did I even think she was –A, but the other girls were now so against the theory? Was I being unfair? And if she really wasn't –A, I had been treating a vulnerable, neglected, alone girl, who had just lost her mother, like a piece of shit. But then there was the more plausible theory: she was putting me under her spell again. The real question was: Was it working? Was I falling for her again? Truth be told, I had no idea. I was with Paige, but she was starting to annoy me. It felt very controlling, our relationship. Maybe I should have just listened to Hanna and Spencer, and broken up with her. There was still time to. But it felt like I was rushing into decisions, all because Alison just looked hot today. –A or not, I could not hide the fact that at the current moment, I wanted to push Alison against the locker and make-out with her as hard as I could. It scared me that I couldn't even think of an explanation of why I wanted to, I just did.

When we finally had left the school – both with all of our HEAVY books – we drove in Ali's car to the library. I decided I did not want to use the school library, because people I know would be in there. Also, the public library was a bit more private. Not many people went there, and the tables were enclosed in bookshelves, so no one could really see you.

The library was incredibly quiet when we entered. Alison lead me to the table at the very back, where there were no windows, or no near tables.

We sat down next to each other and put all our stuff on the table.

"What do you want to do first?" Ali asked.

"Biology. I have no clue what any of it means."

"Okay, what are you studying in bio right now?"

I looked her straight in the eye and replied, "Sex."

She raised her eyebrows, "Oh. Um, okay. Sure. Let's, uh, do that. No like- Um. Get your book, I guess."

I smiled at how cute her fumbling over her words was. Cute? No. Hot? Yeah, of course. But Alison DiLaurentis was not cute. Why did that word pop into my head? Oh, who cared?

I then spent a whole two hours of my life listening to Alison talk about sex while I stared at her boobs. What? Don't blame me, they were right there just begging to be stared at, I swear. I was way too horny to be doing this. God, I needed to just break up with Paige; she was just awful in bed. Couldn't even ever make me orgasm. Ali could make me orgasm, I knew that for sure.

"So, then when a man inserts his-" I heard Alison explain, but I really didn't care. She suddenly stopped talking, "Emily. Why did you want me to explain this all to you if you weren't even going to listen to me? I don't care if a man's penis isn't important to you; you need to know it for the test." She sighed.

I shook my head, looking up to meet her eyes, "Sorry. I got distracted. I swear, I heard the important parts." I stood up and began packing my stuff up, "Hey, do you wanna come back to my house. You could maybe sleep over?"

She gave me a confused look, "Why would you want me to stay over?"  
"I –um. I just want to get to know you, the new Alison, a bit more."  
"Does this mean I'm getting another chance?" She asked with hope in her eyes.

I smiled, "Yes. Clean slate. The girls don't think you're –A. Why should I?" I truly meant those words. Fuck it. I wanted to give Ali a chance. I did used to be in love with her after all. This all didn't mean I was suddenly her best friend or loved her. I just need to know who she was before I made my final decision on her.

She jumped up and wrapped her arms around my neck. I could feel her lips brushing against my shoulder where her head was buried into it. Hugging her back, I could feel her physically relax.

"Thank you, Emily. You have no idea how much you hating me makes me hate myself. I swear I won't let you down." After she said that, I felt my shoulder begin to get wet. I held her tight, making sure she knew I was serious.

"When we get to yours, we could watch the Butterfly Effect. It's kinda the same sort of idea as the Mandela Effect. It could help our work." I'd never heard of the movie, but I nodded and followed her out.

Around two hours later, Alison and I were on my bed in our pyjamas. Despite the weather outside, we both wore tiny running shorts and tank tops. Ali's top went lower than her bra, and her shorts went higher than her panties. There was a massive bowl of popcorn in between us, and we both had a bottle of sprite. The movie was about 10 minutes in, and the only light was the one from the TV screen. Looking over at Alison, I saw her beginning to look tired.

"You okay?" I whispered.

She turned her head to look at me and whispered back, "Yeah." And we went back to watching the movie.  
After an hour, my hand found her one, and I laced our fingers together, just to see what it felt like. Her hands were soft and warm, I liked holding them. Alison leaned into me a bit more and sighed.

"I'm really tired, can we watch the rest tomorrow?" Ali asked when there was about half an hour left.

"Yeah of course." I stood up and turned the TV off. While I was up, Alison got all the food off the bed and settled under the covers. I slid in right behind her. If I moved in about ten inches closer, we would have been spooning. But there was no way in hell I was spooning Ali any time soon. She was just hot, not the love of my life or any of that bullshit. Frankly, I knew that I'd end up unhappily married to Paige, having kids I didn't even like, and hating my job. It would make Paige happy, and I guess that was what I was supposed to care about. I checked my phone to see if my girlfriend had attempted to contact me. She'd sent me a DM. After a breath, I opened the notification. Her message said: "I miss you. Why were you with Alison all lunch? Can we just talk, please babe?" Typing, I decided to reply with the nicest answer I could, "I don't know if I wanna talk to you right now." She had sent that message at 6, when I was at the library with Alison. It was 10 now, so I doubted she would reply. But she did. "Why? I really just need to see you ;)" I thought about the future I had just planned out for myself. Maybe I could avoid that future. But it depended on what I did now. It was unfair to Paige to be with her, especially when I'm not into it anymore. "Meet me outside my house. Now." I sent, not wanting to do this over text. I hoped I wasn't making the wrong decision.

I crept slowly out of the bed, making sure not to disturb Alison. When I got to the door, I turned back to look at her. She didn't look evil – she was just a girl.

Paige arrived after about five minutes. She went to kiss me but I stopped her.

"Why'd you stop me?"  
"I can't be your girlfriend anymore, Paige." I blurted out quickly.

"What?"

Looking down at the floor, I continued, "It's not fair to let this continue when I'm not into it anymore."

Paige glared at me, "I don't care if you're not into it anymore. You are still my girlfriend, and you aren't allowed to be with anyone else apart from me!"  
"Paige, do you hear how ridiculous you sound right now?" I exclaimed.

"No you sound ridiculous! You just want to break up with me because Alison's manipulating you again."  
"We don't know if she's manipulating me. I think she's hurt."  
Paige rolled her eyes, "She's a liar, a bitch, a slut and a stalker. And I know you think so too. Don't let those shitty friends of yours cloud your vision. Now, I have to go. See you tomorrow, baby." And she full on kissed me. She roughly slipped her tongue into my mouth and gripped my waist. I hated every second of that disgusting, sloppy kiss. When she pulled back, she grinned at me before turning around, hopping on her bike and riding away.

As I made my way back into the house, I realised I had no control over the situation. All I could do was be with Paige, forever. I knew what Paige said about Alison wasn't true, it couldn't have been. From all I had seen over the past week, Alison was just sad. She wanted friends. But, maybe that was her manipulation; she wanted us to believe that she was just depressed.  
Sighing, I walked back into my room. At first glance, I noticed Ali wasn't there. My mind instantly went into panic mode, where did she go? She didn't tell me she needed to go anywhere, did she? Paige couldn't have been right, she couldn't have. If Alison had lied to me again, I swear I'd never forgive her. She had no reason to leave, no reason at all.

 **A/N: Hi! Thank you for reading chapter 8! (I'm pretty sure this is chapter 8 lol) So basically, Emily is very confused about who Alison is now. But since Alison was her first love, she can't seem to fully hate her. But she can't fully love her either. Here's a line from an upcoming chapter to keep you guys excited: "I've lied to you already about a million times today, but you would never realise." Please don't forget to leave a review! Hope you guys are looking forward to the next chapter, sorry this was really short 3.**


	9. I Still Love You

When I woke up and Emily wasn't there I knew I had been played. I can't believe I actually thought she was giving me a second chance. She was probably off somewhere with Paige, laughing about how stupid I was. I left her house through the back door and made my way back home, not bothering to use my car. It was around 11, so it was pitch black.

Crickets chirped in the background while I made my way down the winding streets of Rosewood. Why did I come back? Sure, I wasn't safe on the run, but I didn't feel safe here either. Where the others playing me? I stopped. How did I know Emily wasn't there because she was tricking me? Oh, for gods sakes. Had I really just left without even checking for her? Maybe she had just gone to the bathroom or something.  
My phone began ringing. Speak of the devil. I answered it.

"Hello?" I greeted when I answered the phone.

"Ali," An annoyed Emily begun, "Where the hell are you?"

"Where were you? I woke up and you were gone."  
"I- I was talking to someone. It's none of your business who. I thought you were sleeping round." And it dawned on me that she was upset. Which I didn't understand. Why was Emily being all over the place suddenly? It was only the first week back at school.

"I'll come back now." I assured her and hung up.

Running, I made my way back to the Fields house. Luckily for me, I hadn't made it that far before Emily called me. When I finally arrived, Emily was waiting for me on her window couch.

"Why did you leave?" She asked, without saying so much as a quick 'hello'.

"I thought you had played me."  
"Why would you think that?"  
"Emily," I started as I sat down next to her, "You're being really weird. First of all, just break up with Paige. You don't want to be with her, it's obvious, and it's annoying, boring drama that I can't be asked with anymore. Secondly, it's only the first Thursday back, and you hated me more than anything on Monday. Fuck it, you hated me this morning. You're doing total 180's. I don't get it, Emily. What's wrong?"

She looked deep in thought, "I'm just really confused."  
"About what?"  
"About you god dammit!" She exclaimed, "I have no idea who you are! You're not the Alison I knew in freshman year, but I still like you. I just can't seem to shake the feeling that you're still that evil little liar. I guess it's trust issues or something."

"Evil? No, I hope not. Liar? Yes, I've lied to you about a million times today, but you would never realise. You wanna know the truth?"

"Yes."  
I breathed in a deep breath, "I don't understand you at all. But yet, I still love you. Is that wrong?"  
Her eyes softened, "What don't you understand?"

"You."

"Well, I don't know what else I'm supposed to say to you!" I shouted.

"Maybe a 'sorry' would be nice! I've spent two years away, feeling lonely and depressed and unlovable. Then you MAKE me come back, and pretend to be my friend for five minutes and turn your back on me the second I do one thing bad!" She screamed back. I knew it was probably gonna wake up the neighbours, but I honestly didn't care.  
"It wasn't just one thing, Alison! You're no angel."  
"You're no angel, either! I thought, that night in my bed, we would be able to finally be together, then you just ran right back to Paige, the abusive bitch."  
"We could have got together if you wouldn't have lied!"

"What difference did it make? She still slapped me first, it's not like I beat Mona up." Alison said, grinding her teeth.

"Ugh!" I groaned, frustrated.

"Oh, you think you're stressed? I have to watch every single move I make just to check it doesn't seem like I'm doing something bad. You have made me cry myself to sleep every night since you told me you were done with me! Just let me go home to you can go see Paige and do whatever abusive couples do together."  
"If I'm being honest with you Alison, I did break up with Paige. She still says we're together, but I made it clear that I don't want her." She admitted, "Also, I'm sorry. Look, I know I haven't been kind to you, but I just am so confused-"  
"That's not an excuse." I interrupted.  
"I know. Listen, I want to just start over. I know I hurt you, and you hurt me too, let's just put the past where it belongs: behind us. We're both so different now. Also, I want to apologise for what I did in the classroom. I didn't know if that's something you wanted to do, and it was wrong."  
"Thank you. And please, not matter how much it turned me on, never grope my feminine parts in the middle of history please." I smiled, glad we could become friends.

"I have an idea." Emily said.

I tilted my head, "What is it?"

"Let's skip school tomorrow. We could spend the day both getting to know each other." She suggested.

"Sure, that sounds interesting. Let's start now. I know a game, it's kinda like Ping-Pong, where you go back and forth saying a fact about yourself."

"Okay, sure. I'll start. Um… I miss swimming." She began.

"I love horse riding." I admitted and Emily looked at me funny and raised her eyebrows.

"I don't like Kanye West."  
"I'm leaving." I laughed, "No, just kidding. I wish I would have never stopped you in that locker room." And the air became tense.

"I used to dream about you being alive." Emily revealed.

"I miss you." I said. It wasn't the three words I wanted to say, but they'd have to do. I was still calming down from our fight. Of course, everything between us wasn't perfect, and we'd need to sit down and talk about everything. But for tonight, I could at least forget about the imperfections between us and just enjoy her company.

After a moment, Emily whispered, "Let's go to bed. I'm tired." She took my hand and then led me to the bed. Emily laid down in the centre and pulled my head towards her so I was resting on her chest. Within minutes, I fell asleep.

 **A/N: This was really short, but I felt like I needed to just get this up as a kind of explanation for the (very badly written) last chapter. I wrote it over the course of a really busy school week so it was a bit all over the place. I hope this kind of gives you a better look of what actually happened. Thank you for reading! Please don't forget to review! EDIT: I'm probably not gonna continue this story, so this is the last chaper I guess**


	10. AN: IMPORTANT

NOT AN UPDATE JUST A QUESTION: Do you guys want me to continue this? I know a few of you do but some of you don't like the story anymore so I don't know whether to continue or not, I was just gonna end it here but I was wondering if any of you wanted me to continue? It would be really helpful if you replied! Thank you guys so much for reading this story if that was the last chapter 3


	11. Put A Spell On Me

The cold breeze from outside was the first thing that greeted me in that morning. I didn't want to open my eyes; I didn't want the feeling of calmness to end. Currently, Alison and I were spooning. My arm was draped over her body and I was holding her tight, while she snuggled into me with her back pressed against my front. Her breathing was even, so I knew she was still asleep. Slowly, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was a headful of blonde hair, and the side of Alison's face. She looked incredibly calm, and I was afraid to move in case I disturbed her peace. There was a nice duvet wrapped around us from the waist down.

Soon, she began to stir awake. Groaning, Alison stretched her arms up a bit and turned around. With her eyes still closed, she buried her head into my chest and sighed. I thought that maybe she and I would be okay, one day. I wrapped my arms around her and tried to forget that the last couple months never happened. No, in my mind, this was just the morning after that night…

 _I was the first awake. I kissed Alison's neck and shoulder until she woke up. "Mhm," She moaned groggily, "I wish every morning was like this."_

 _"It could be." I whispered into her ear before kissing her ear lobe._

 _I didn't bother going any further than light kisses, knowing neither of us wanted things to go in the other direction at that particular moment in time._

 _"I don't want this to end." Ali confessed then turned her body around so that she was facing me. Her baby blue eyes were so enchanting I couldn't help but just stare into them. She leaned forward and captured my lips in a passionate kiss. We made out lightly for a few minutes before we both pulled apart, breathless._

 _"What did last night mean?" I suddenly asked. She was about to reply, but her phone went off._

 _"Sorry, hang on. Oh, it's Hanna. I need to take this, apparently she got absolutely hammered last night and I need to check if she's okay. Plus, she doesn't really like me so it must me important if she's calling me." Alison explained then dragged herself out of bed and into the hallway. Fucking Hanna. On her way out, I stared at Alison's ass in those see through lace panties. What? You would've done the same thing._

"Morning." She mumbled into my chest and it made me smile.

"Morning to you too." I said and she pulled herself away from my chest, but our arms were still holding each other.

Opening her blue eyes, she smiled at me, "That was such a good sleep."

"Yeah, I feel really tired still." I replied.

"That's how I always feel after a good sleep. Haven't had one in while, though." I couldn't quite understand why, but I wanted to kiss her. But I knew that was ridiculous. Just yesterday I hated her, why did I want to get so close to her so quickly. What do they say about first loves? You'll always love your first love? You'll always find your way back to them? Whatever it was, I knew it applied to Alison and I. And even though I still wasn't sure how, I was going to try and make up for being so horrible to her. I guess the reason I acted how I did towards her was because I thought the Alison I was seeing was too good to be true. If I could go back in time and change one little thing, I knew at the current moment Ali would be my girlfriend. But she wouldn't even want me anymore. Because I fucked up. Because I dated Paige instead of her. Because I didn't let myself trust her. But maybe before I went forward with pursuing that kind of a relationship with Alison, I should have sorted out the whole Paige drama. We were definitely broken up, but it didn't seem like she was going down without a fight. Which is exactly why I broke up with her; she was too controlling, it was basically sociopathic.

"What do you want to do today?" I asked and ran my hand through her hair.

"I wanna go out. On a walk or something. I want to have one of those days girls on Tumblr have in the winter. Seems like fun. We could go to the park, lay down a blanket and read. It'll be cold but we could buy some hot cocoa or something? I don't know, I just thought-"

"That sounds amazing." I said, grinning. She was being cute, I couldn't even deny that.

"But can we just watch TV this morning?" She asked hopefully.

"Sure, let's put on whatever you want." I told her, and she got up to get the TV remote and I missed her warmth. When she sat back down, she didn't return to her position of cuddling me. Instead, she propped herself up onto the headboard and brought the duvet up to her hips. Mirroring her position, my hand accidentally slipped onto her thigh. This time, I just kept it still. Alison put on RuPaul's Drag Race. I had heard of it but I had never watched an episode.

"Season 6's so funny. You ever seen this show before?" She asked while Netflix loaded the episode, which was titled 'Drag Queens of Comedy'.

"Heard of it." I answered. The 'previously on' played and it looked really dramatic. When the episode began to play, there was already drama. Like, a lot of it. Some person called Courtney was starting most of it.

"Why did that girl just say 'party' for no reason?" I asked.

"Its her catchphrase. She just kind of says it to fill space." Alison replied, not taking her eyes off the screen. Even though I was confused, I continued watching. I tried to keep up, wanting to make Ali happy. I had a feeling from what happened last night that she wanted to be friends, so I would do exactly that. Even if it was a step back from what I wanted to be with her right now. I laughed when some incredibly butch bitch started making fun of someone called Laganja.

The mini challenge was to lipsync upside down and on their back with makeup on their chin.

"Alison I'm really confused." I said halfway through the challenge.

"I would be shocked if you weren't confused, to be honest." She said as she covered the hand I had on her thigh with her own.

"I love this episode because only like two people do well and it's amazing. Bianca is so fucking funny, just watch."

"She's the butch angry one, right?"

"Yeah." Alison said she we continued watching. Suddenly, there was an insane girl with a no smoking sign on her head hiding under a table.

"It that girl okay?" I asked.

"No, not at all." Alison laughed.

The episode went by really fast, and Bianca won the challenge. Laganja was sent home. Okay, cool. I didn't know any of them so it didn't really affect me. Truth be told, I wanted to go already. I hadn't spent a day with Alison in years, and I wanted to get started as soon as possible. But Alison seemed comfortable where we were right then; so we watched two more episodes before deciding to get ready so go out. It was only 11, and I realised all the girls had texted me asking why I was at school. I replied to them all by saying 'I'm with Alison xx' and nothing else. They could interpret that however they felt like. I wouldn't have minded whatever conclusion they came to.

Alison borrowed some of my clothes and went into the bathroom to change. Was it just me or was sharing clothes with people really intimate? Like, only your closest friends and up were allowed to share clothes? I don't know, it just felt weird knowing Alison would be walking around all day wearing my stuff. Peeking out of my bedroom window, I saw that it was still snowing lightly outside, and there was a blanket of snow fully covering the ground. When Alison emerged from the bathroom, I realised that my clothes probably suited her more than they suited me. She was wearing my blue jeans, plain white shirt, and pink knit jumper. She was also wearing her own dark green coat and brown boots.

"Hey, I like the shoes, what are they?" I asked her after a minute.

"Thanks, they're brown scallop chelsea boots from Evans. They were like 75% off. I was really lucky to get them in the sale." She told me, looking down at them and moving her foot around so she could get a better look.

I cleared my throat to get her attention. When she looked up at me again, I begun to speak, "Where should we go first? I was thinking we should go out of town for the day so no one catches us bunking. Maybe take a drive up to Broadwater? I love it there." I suggested as we moved out of the room and went downstairs. I got a scarf and my black coat from the rack at the bottom of the stairs and put them on.

"I love Broadwater. Maybe we could go to that diner near the centre of town there? You know the one we used to go to every time we went there with the girls?" Alison said while she put her phone in her handbag, which she had packed full of so much crap I wasn't sure what kind of Mary Poppins tricks I would be forced to witness during the course of the day.

"Yeah, that sounds great." I replied, and went to open the front door for her. The second it was open, a gust of cold air rushed into the house. Alison hugged her coat tighter around her and stepped out of the house. We decided that I would drive; it would only take an hour. We both knew the way off by heart, so there was so need to make Alison the navigator or anything like that.

The two of us stayed in a comfortable silence for the first ten minutes or so of the car drive. Suddenly, Alison moved to plug her phone into the AUX cord, and began shuffling through her phone. She chose some strange song in another language, maybe Spanish? I wasn't sure. I checked the radio to see if I knew what the song was called, and saw it was titled 'Malambo No. 1' Alison sung along perfectly to the actually quite funny song. It was really weird. Taking my eyes off the road, I saw she was doing these weird lip movements. When the song was over, she began laughing while Stronger by Britney Spears came on. Once again, Alison knew all the words.  
We spent the rest of the drive listening to her playlist while she sung the entire thing, dancing along with it. She was an amazing singer, even if most of the time she just chose to shout the words rather than sing them. I just sat there the whole time, not knowing barely any of the songs, smiling to myself. Why did I ever deny myself this?

"We're almost at the diner." I told her, turning down Trouble by P!nk. Alison was still singing the lyrics, "What?"

"I said that we're basically at the diner. I can see it." I pointed towards the old fashioned building. The neon in the sign was still clearly visible due to in the dark snowy weather. I was surprised my car had made us here safely in the thick layer of snow covering all the roads. I parked up the car and Alison darted into the building as to avoid getting too cold. I decided to take my time and enjoy the snow falling into my hair. When I got into the diner, I saw Alison had already gotten us a booth. It really did look like a clique 50's or 60's diner. Ali had taken her coat off and gotten us menus.

"It's so nice in here, don't you think? Really warm as well." She said as I sat down opposite her.

"Yeah, definitely." I replied, as I took off my coat. While I read over the menu, I placed my hand on the table, hoping Ali would hold it. Sadly, I don't think she got the hint. Either that or she didn't want to hold it. The waitress came over and took our orders; Alison was having pancakes and bacon, I was having the full English, and we were going to share a large strawberry milkshake because Alison said it would be 'cute'.

While we waited for our food to come, we had a talk.

"Listen, Emily. I know we said clean slate, but if you think I'm going to tolerate you being a downright jerk again; you're wrong. I'm not saying you've been a jerk this morning; I'm just putting it out there. I'm no pushover."  
I slowly nodded, "I understand, it was wrong. I'm sorry."  
She finally put her hand in mine across the table, "I'm sorry I made you feel like I wasn't trustworthy."

I took a deep breath and smiled, "Clean slate."  
She nodded and squeezed my hand, echoing my words.

"Next time I hang out with the girls, you should come too. They all wanna see you more." I told her.  
"I will, I missed being with you guys." And with that we just began to talk about absolutely nothing of any importance. Alison did a little bounce when the food came and I laughed. How could I go from hating to loving her in just a few days? God, she really had put a spell on me.

Biting into the pancake, she moaned loudly. Not just on the first bite, but every single god damned bite. She was trying to kill me.

 **A/N: Hi! Sorry it's been so long since an update, I wasn't sure if you all wanted me to continue this story or not. But thanks to the overwhelming amount of you who said last update that you wanted me to write more, here is this little chapter! Because I want this story to be really interactive and let you guys help me write it, I want to know what you want me to do about some things.**

 **1.** **What should I do with Paige? I kind of want Emily to have a massive argument with her, but maybe some of you guys have better ideas.**

 **2.** **When should Emison finally happen? I think around about now might not be bad, but also it may be a little bit unrealistic for them to date so soon. It's only the first week back!**

 **3.** **When the time comes, do you guys want it to be really sudden and heated, or romantic or emotional?**

 **4.** **How graphic should the sex scenes be? I know some people like graphic ones and some people hate them, so I want to know what's the main opinion for you readers!**

 **5.** **Should I add any other point of views apart from our two girls?**

 **6.** **Want more angst?**

 **7.** **What should the other couples be?**

 **8.** **Would you guys want to see any –A action? If so, who should –A be?**

 **9.** **Do you guys have any more pop culture Alison could be obsessed with?**

 **Anything else you want please drop a nice review, thank you all so much for reading!**


	12. I Wish Pluto Were A Planet Again

***THREE MONTHS LATER***

Ever since our kind of date in Broadwater, Emily and I had gotten much closer. That certainly did not mean things were perfect between the two of us. But, we had talked a lot about some important stuff. Including Paige. Emily said they were broken up, yet every time Paige saw Emily at school, she would act as if the two were still dating. I guess that just was not my problem to figure out. Currently, Emily and I were in the middle of History class finishing our presentation on JFK's assassination to the rest of the class.

"The bullet so would have not survived." Emily explained, pointing towards a picture on the interactive board.

"Yeah, and look," I said, putting my finger on a diagram, "Two fucking snipers." Miss Ballinger just totally ignored my foul mouth, reason number a million to love this teacher.

"Gun couldn't shoot that damn fast." Emily added.

"But who could?" I asked Emily dramatically. A pause.

"CIA agents." We answered seriously in unison and everyone laughed. We wrapped up the presentation and the teacher gave us some praise.

Since we were the last to present, the teacher just said, "Do whatever you like. You kids are over worked nowadays. Take a selfie or sext, or whatever it is you use snapchat for. I'm off to the teachers lounge. No snitches." And she left.

"She's not a very good teacher, is she?" I thought aloud.

"Better than teachers who actually make us do stuff." Emily answered.

I looked at Emily before asking, "What do you want to do?"

"I could think of a few things." Emily replied, flirtatiously. We had been flirting back and fourth for a while now, but it never went anywhere, sadly.

"You wanna hang out at mine after school, watch a few movies?"

I looked at her with apologetic eyes, "I have musical practice. I could come by later, but by later I mean about 7. We're being worked really hard." So Aria and I did get the parts in the musical. Aria got Frenchy and I got Sandy. Some girl got mad that I got the lead role even though it was my second choice, and for a few weeks or so I had been convinced she was going to pull some Showgirls shit.

Surprisingly, Aria had convinced me to go to a load of clubs with her; art, yearbook, photography, glee club (which I was disappointed to learn that it wasn't an exact replica of the show Glee), and dance club (which she was just awful at, but she was definitely one of the hardest working girls in that class). The clubs ran on a three week cycle, and I was busy almost everyday after school. I was in a load of clubs, not just with Aria. After the girls and I got closer again, we all decided to join different clubs together just for fun, and to meet new people.

Ever since we found out we'd all have to do an extra year at the school, we basically said 'fuck it' for the rest of this year and decided just to have fun. Now that –A was revealed and long forgotten, and Mona was back and in our little circle (she came back in time to snatch the role of Jan in the play), we were able to just enjoy our lives.

Trust me, if I tried to tell you everything you've missed, we'd be here all week. But you'll catch up, slowly.

"I don't think my mom would be happy about you coming round so late, maybe tomorrow?" Em asked hopefully.

"Sorry, track practice."

"What time does it end?"

"It's only an hour, so you could come and just sit on the bleachers and watch if you want." I suggested.

Emily's eyes lit up, "Yay! Of course I will."

I smiled at Emily and grabbed her hand under the table. She ran her thumb up and down the back of my hand and I leaned my head on her shoulder. That day, I felt incredibly tired. History was boring when you were just allowed to sit there and do nothing. Quickly, Emily pressed a kiss to my temple. Emily grabbed her phone and put it in front of us, Snapchat open.

"Take a pic with me, I need to post something on Instagram or everyone will think I'm dead." She commanded and started going through the filters. She decided on the flower crown one. We took a few pictures and she posted the one where my eyes were scrunched up and I was doing a cute smile. My phone buzzed and I knew it would be updating me that Emily had posted the picture.

"I'm bored." I whined into her shoulder.

Emily huffed, "The bell's gonna ring any second now, Al, chill."

Being my petty self, I began to count the seconds out loud. When I got to around thirty, the sound of the bell blasted through the school. Hugging Emily goodbye, I kissed her cheek and made my way to the auditorium. Now I know to some of you it may seem that Emily and I had something going on, but that's just how we naturally acted around each other. We hadn't even kissed this year!

"Hey, pretty lady." I heard Mona greet me when she came up from behind and started walking next to me.

"Hey, Mona." I smiled and took her bag for her, because I was that considerate kind of person from now on. She asked me what scenes we were rehearsing today and I told her that we were doing dialogue only scenes, no musical numbers. She groaned and said that she preferred musical numbers.

"Really? I love both." I replied as we opened the auditorium doors to be greeted by a happy Aria. She looked over-caffeinated, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Ali, Mona! Guys, I have amazing news." She said as she bounced over to us. Being near Aria and her energetic nature made me instantly a bit happier. A massive smile carved itself onto my face.

"What is it, Ar?" Mona asked from beside me.

She smiled ever widen and I leaned over and swapped my raspberry iced tea with her Starbucks blonde roast, which had so much caffeine in it I was shocked she hadn't just dropped dead from drinking one a day for the last month.

"They changed the plan for today, we're doing Summer Nights!" The tiny brunette beamed.

"Well there you go, Mona." I laughed as I looked over at the other brunette.

"DiLaurentis! Montgomery!" Mr Hanley shouted from his seat behind the desk in the audience.

"God, is he ever happy?" Aria wondered as we went up to the teacher.

"Yes, sir?" I asked and Aria stayed close to my side.

"Bedroom scene, now." The teacher deadpanned.

I grabbed Aria's hand and dragged her up on stage, where Laila – the girl who was playing Rizzo – was waiting. She looked at me and motioned to the teacher, rolling her eyes. I laughed at the gesture.

"Okay, and go!" Mr Hanley directed, signalling the start of the scene. All the students sat down as the three of us began our scene on the well-made replica of the bedroom. Props to the set designers, really.

Taking a seat in the chair next to the bed Aria and Laila were on; we focused on the TV screen as a jingle for the Vince Fontaine show was played.

"Hey, Frenchy, throw me a cigarette, will you?" 'Rizzo' asked, and 'Frenchy' reached over and got a fake pack of cigarettes.

Aria looked over at me, "You want one, Sandy?"

"Oh, no thanks. I don't smoke." I answered and smiled.

Laila looked over at me, "Ah, go on try it. It isn't going to kill you."

I took the packet out of her hands and took one out. Pretending to inhale, I began to cough wildly.

"Oh, I should have told you, don't inhale if you're not used to it." Laila laughed.

Aria grinned kindly at me, "That's okay, Sandy. You'll get better at it. Then I'll show you how to French inhale." Aria took the cigarette to her lips and inhaled some of the 'smoke' inside and let it rise up slowly from the corner of her mouth, "That's really cool." She finished. I smiled as she said the line, remembering how much trouble the three of us had with it at the beginning. The first time we laughed so hard the teacher had to move onto the next scene.

"That's the ugliest thing I ever saw!" Exclaimed Laila.

Shaking her head, Aria said," Nah, the guys really go for it. That's how I got my nickname, Frenchy."

Laila cackled, "Sure it is." She looked to me and smirked, "I almost forgot! A little sneaky drink to get the party going." She cheered and pulled a bottle of fake Italian wine out of a brown paper bag. She took a swig of the 'wine' (Which was just half full of water) and handed to Aria, who mirrored her actions.

"It's kind of sweet. I think I like Thunderbird better." Aria admitted and Laila rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, suit yourself. Hey, Sandy didn't get any wine." 'Rizzo' pointed out and gestured the bottle in my direction.

I shook my head and smiled politely, "Oh, that's okay. I don't mind."

'Rizzo' raised her eyebrow at me, "Yeah, I'll bet you never had a drink before, either."

"Sure I did, I had some champagne at my cousin's wedding once."

We got through the rest of the scene okay, skipping over the song.

At half six, while the boys were practicing a scene, I sat down in the audience and pulled out my phone to find that the Instagram group chat with the girls had gone insane. The chat's name was always changing, and right now it was called 'Midnight Man'. From beside me, Aria and Mona both pulled out their phones and went on the chat. The most recent message I read was from Spencer, which said 'Albert Einstein didn't die for this' and I snorted. Swiping my phone open, I caught myself up on what had happened, discussing it with the girls next to me. Turns out that Emily and Spencer were arguing about some kind of women's rights issue while Hanna just sent pictures of Homer Simpson and RuPaul and said stuff like 'Furrie convention' and 'Fuck that'.

Spencer: that literally doesn't add up

Emily: IT DOESN'T MATTER

Spencer: what do u mean 'it doesn't matter' its literally what you've been talking about for the last two hours

Hanna: Crackheads have superpowers

Spencer: Em literally they did that to themselves

Emily: Well it's half of the fucking world

Spencer: not really no

Emily: u still can't say its fair

Spencer: nothings fair

Hanna: Edwin sizzle hands

Aria: ok Hanna me too

Mona: whats the T

Alison: don't

Spencer: do u think men r treated fairly

Alison: well bc they're the leaders of the world practically they treat themselves so yeah

Spencer: see Ali agrees that they cant be treated unfairly bc they have a position of power that theyre still not giving to women

Mona: they have a point, hun

Hanna: I wish Pluto were a planet again

Aria: me too

Emily: fine lets just drop it, I guess ur right

Spencer: HA THAT'S WHAT TAKING DEBATE GETS YOU BITCH

Hanna: GUYS LOOK AT THIS

Hanna sent a video of Jeffree Star.

Hanna: NO ONE SHOULD LOOK THIS SCARY

Hanna: why did the video not send ok

Hanna sent it again and Aria laughed.

Hanna: oh it did send

Hanna: my head hurts did it send

The three of us laughed as Hanna sent it a third time.

Hanna: just in case

Alison: You sent that 3 times

Hanna: it's like 3am

Alison: It's 6:30pm

Hanna: oh

Hanna: well

Hanna: it's just not the right time rn

Hanna: gorilla hour rlly

Hanna: yeah me too

Alison: Gorilla hour

Hanna: wait hold up

Hanna: why can I not stop thinking about aeroplanes?

Hanna: like

Hanna: theyre actually magic

Hanna: how do they fly?

Hanna: woah

Hanna: fucking hell

Alison: idk it's got to do w genetics or some shit

Hanna: isn't genetics animal tho

Alison: No its like the wirey things in electronics

Hanna: oh sorry I'm bella throne

Alison: You dumb bitch

Hanna: sorry I'm bad w RE

Mona: I want to go to a haunted hotel

Mona: I wanna go do a load of scary stuff

Spencer: we should do an Ouija board under Suicide Bridge

Alison: YES

Emily: NO

"Okay everyone, good rehearsal today. You're all free to go for the day. Rehearsal is cancelled until the 12th because the glee club needs the auditorium for rehearsal. Most of you are probably in the glee club anyway, right?" Mr Hanley asked and around half of the room muttered some sort of 'yes'.

The three of us walked out of the auditorium and headed towards the parking lot.

"I'm hungry, you guys wanna get dinner at The Grille?" Mona asked, getting into Aria's car (which we had both ridden to school in).

"I'm up for it. What about you, Ali?" Aria asked.

Without hesitation, I answered, "Fuck yes."

 **A/N: I hadn't realised it's been so long since an update! Sorry for the long wait, but here's the new chapter. Before you ask, you will find out what happened during those three months, and I did the flash forwards because a lot of people told me not to focus on –A or didn't care if I did or didn't. The texts between the girls is actually a shortened version of a conversation I had with some of my friends aha. I'll probs focus a bit more on Ali and her friendships w the girls to stop her and Emily rushing into things. And you'll find out why the girls have to re-do their senior year, even tho it's a little bit obvious. Let me know how u felt abt the formatting of this chapter, bc I'm still a little bit unsure. Please please please review! –Maisie**


	13. Teasers

**A/N: This isn't quite a new chapter. I just decided to post some teasers for future chapters to keep you guys excited while I'm on holiday because I might only be able to update once while I'm there. - Maisie**

I kissed her again, harder, "God, why are you so perfect?"

She moaned loudly and pressed our bodies closer together, "Shut the fuck up and kiss me."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Why did you do this to me?" I sobbed angrily, wanting nothing to just hurt her just as badly back.

The brunette shook her head and her brown eyes suddenly got colder, "Because you deserve it."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"I love you so much." He said and put my forehead to his.

"There's no one else for me apart from you, you know that, right?" I asked him softly.

"Of course I know that, because there's no one else for me, either babe."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Alcohol helps heartbreak." Hanna suggested and shrugged.

"I don't think that's going to help." I said sadly, still shocked with what had happened between the two and how much my heart hurt.

"Trust, alcohol helps everything." The blonde assured us.

"What about liver damage, does it help that?" Spencer asked.

"Shut up, smart ass."


	14. Get Ali Laid

I woke up that morning to the sound of messages coming through my phone. Groaning, I lent over to my bedside table and took my phone off charge. As soon as I took one glance of my phone, I saw the group chat (which was now named 'jush' for some reason I was not about to ask) was going off. God, even at 6:58am on a Thursday. I got up to use the bathroom. As I sat down on the toilet, I read some of the messages coming through.

 _Alison: CURSED_

 _Spencer: I think it's my bedtime_

 _Aria: Nahhhh I'm good_

 _Hanna: mood_

 _Mona: get ur jush_

 _Spencer: I need coffee_

 _Alison: Don't say that near Aria_

 _Aria: I'm not that bad_

 _Mona: wig_

 _Alison: Morning Em_

I smiled happily and looked over the message a few times, she must have seen that I was reading the messages

 _Emily: morning, should I ask what happened?_

 _Hanna: we had a texting n oovoo sleepover_

 _Mona: we tried to wake u up but theres only so much u can do without being there_

 _Emily: I think im glad I missed it_

When I was just about to get into the shower, I got a DM from Ali.

 _Alison: Em?_

 _Emily: Yeah?_

 _Alison: After track practice we're gonna go to the brew to work on English homework, ok?_

 _Emily: sounds great, thank u xxx_

 _Alison: its ok x_

I put down my phone and got into the shower.

* * *

"Hi babe!" Paige shouted as I was walking towards the steps to go into the school building.

"Hello, Paige." I greeted monotonously. Surely she would get the message that we weren't together anymore. We weren't still together, right?

"What are you doing after school?" She asked, getting too close for comfort.

I sighed, "Doing some work with Ali."

She rolled her eyes, "Are you cheating on me?"

I laughed. No, like, really laughed. Cackled actually. I didn't realise Hanna and Spencer were just walking up the steps and they must've heard the question too, as they started screaming laughing as the walking into the school. I was pretty sure I heard a teacher telling them to shut up. God Paige really was convinced we were a couple.

"You sound insane." I breathed out, holding back laughter.

She looked confused, "What, I can't ask my girlfriend if she's cheating on me with her first love?"

Giggling, I begun, "Paige-"

Feeling a pair of arms wrap around me from behind, I stopped my sentence. The smell of vanilla filled the air.

"Hey Em." Ali whispered, still hugging me. She jumped up to kiss my cheek before going to my side and taking my hand in her soft, warm one. "Paige." She sent a nod in the brunette's direction before walking the both us away from Paige, now glaring at us. Smiling, I was lead to into the cold school building and to Ali's locker.

Hanna and Spencer were hovering around Hanna's locker, which was usually where we met before school now. Spencer was typing away quickly on her phone, while Hanna had her resting on Spencer's shoulder, looking at the screen and giggling. The two were so fixed on the screen they didn't realise Ali and I were now next to them, getting her stuff out of her locker. Spencer's phone buzzed and Hanna squeaked. Snatching the phone out of Spencer's hands, Hanna tapped out a message and hit send.

"Hanna! What did you put?" Spencer whisper-shouted and grabbed her phone. Ali looked at the phone screen and cackled.

"See, Ali thinks it's good." Hanna laughed and high-fived the girl, interlacing their fingers and putting their now joined hands down.

Spencer looked up and saw us, "Oh, morning. Nice conversation with Paige earlier, Em."

I rolled my eyes and gave her the middle finger, "Be quiet." I put my hand down, "What's going on here?"

"Spencer and Toby are sexting." Hanna deadpanned.

The brunette widened her eyes, "No! We're not sexting, we're just talking about our date later, you idiot."

"So then why did you put ' _I can't wait to frisk you later, my big sexy cop man'_ seems kinda kinky." Ali asked, giggling.

Spencer looked like she was about to hit Hanna, "Han! You can't put that. That's disgusting!"

Hanna and Alison shared a look and both blew out a laugh, and then Hanna said, "Spencer, I'm just trying to spice up your sex life."

Alison glanced at me momentarily.

"Why don't you spice up Alison's? She doesn't even have one! Mona has Mike, Aria has Ezra, you have Caleb, Emily has Paige," They all chuckled and I huffed, "I have Toby. Just try and get Ali laid."

Hanna gasped and hugged Spencer one handed-ly, the other hand still in Ali's, "Yes! That's an amazing idea. I love you Spencer Jill Hastings!"

Ali looked down, "Han, don't get too excited."

Suddenly, the other blonde stopped, "Why?"

Alison quickly pulled her blonde counterpart away down the hall from us and round a corner, where we could no longer see them.

"Well, that was weird." Spencer commented as she wrote out an explanation text to Toby. Why would Ali not just say what she wanted to say in front of the two of us? It's not like I cared about Ali's love life, and I didn't think it thrilled Spencer. Maybe Ali just wanted to make a plan with Hanna; I had seen her eyeing up the new boy – Adam? Yeah, that was his name. They were drama partners according to Noel. They'd be cute, I guess.

Aria walked into the school with a certain bounce in her step, "Hey, you two. Where are the others?"  
Spencer smiled at the tiny girl in front of us, "What? We're not good enough for you?"

"Of course you are." Aria replied and hugged her friend.

"What's got you so happy today, Ar?" I asked, looking into Ali's locker. There was a picture of the six of us at a festival last week, Alison had her arm wrapped around my neck and my arm was around her waist. Instead of looking at the camera like the other four, we were both looking at each other, grinning. That exact picture was my lock screen on my phone.

"Ezra's coming back from London today. He's on the plane now; I'm seeing him after school. God, I've missed him." Aria beamed, and Spencer and I shared a kind of 'lets pretend to be happy for her even though we aren't' look. Okay, listen, Ezra was a nice guy, we just all agreed that he might not be the best for Aria. Aria needed someone who had the same kind of drive and passion for art and creativity as her. Sure, Ezra loved to write, but I mean creative arts, which Aria loved more than she would probably love her first born.

"That's amazing, babe. Don't forget us when you're spending all your time with him and talking about him." Spencer said, only half joking.

"I don't talk about him that much." Aria muttered.

I chuckled, "Sure you don't, you little stalker."

"Hey!"

* * *

"Well done Alison." I heard the teacher praise Alison from her seat next to me. Wow, Mrs Baker hated Ali, she must've done some Van Gough level work. I looked at what she had done and realised why she got praise; it was a picture I guess was based off Snow White, and it was stunning.

"That's really good, Al." I whispered in her ear as soon as the teacher had gone. She grinned and went back to her work. I heard Kevin and the new boy Adam talking from their row behind us.

"You think she's hot?" Kevin whispered.

"Yeah, she's smoking. What's her name again?" Adam asked.

"Ali." Kevin replied and my eyes widened. Fucks sake, of course he wanted her.

"Hey, Ali." Adam said in a smooth voice and tapped the blonde next to me on the shoulder. She turned around, her golden locks falling just right around her.

"Yes?" I would've bet my life that was flirty. Hanna was look silently watching the exchange, smirking. Fuck, she was setting them up.

"You busy after school?" He asked with a kind smile, and I knew I was okay. She was totally taken. After school, that is.

"Hmmm," she hummed and put her hand on her chin, "not that I can think of. Why?" What? She had track, and then we were going to the Brew. This had to be some kind of joke.

"You wanna go to Brew?" Jesus Christ, Ali would never go for him, surely. Was he really attractive to straight girls? He looked exactly like Augustus from The Fault In Our Stars, but a bit younger. That can't be hot to girls.

"Sure thing, we have History together last thing, so we can go from there." She told him and winked. Ew.

"Amazing, see you there, Al." And with that the conversation was over. I didn't know why I was so angry; it was just a stupid coffee. Why would she rather be with him than with me? Probably because he wants to get in her pants, or something.

 **A/N: Hi! I know this is short, but I never really like writing from Emily's point of view. Wow Paige really is something else. If you forgot who Kevin was he's the nice guy in Emison's History who's in musical theatre and looks like Blaine Anderson lmao. Adam seems nice, doesn't he? Well, let's see where that goes. -Maisie**


	15. A Raging Homosexual

After Art ended, I saw Adam walking towards his Geography classroom. I ran to him and pulled him into a big hug.

"Thank you so much, you're amazing." I whispered into his soft grey hoodie. He put his arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground. He smelled like bubble gum.

When he put me down, he said, "You're decent, DiLaurentis. Anything to help a friend."

I smiled, "Do you think it worked?"

"Definitely, she looked like she wanted to rip me apart. In fact," He began, casting a glance over to the left, "she's glaring at me right now."  
Checking, Emily was certainly giving Adam a hard death stare. Did this mean what I thought it did? I hoped Hanna's plan was working.

 _"_ _Han, don't get too excited." I warned her, as Emily and Spencer watched us._

 _"_ _Why?" Hanna asked and I held her hand tighter and pulled her away. I could hear Spencer and Emily muttering in the distance. I took us around the corner and locked us in the janitor's closet._

 _"_ _Ali, I know I'm trying to get you laid but I'm taken-" Hanna joked._

 _"_ _Not funny. Listen, if I tell you something, do you swear to not tell anyone?" I raised my eyebrow and she thought for a second._

 _"_ _Your secret's safe with me."_

 _"_ _I think I'm still have feelings for Emily." I revealed and held my breath._

 _Hanna sighed, "Tell me something I don't know, blondie."_

 _My eyes widened, "Is it that obvious?"_

 _"_ _Nah, I just could feel vibes coming off you two. And don't worry, I have a plan."_

 _"_ _How long have you known, Jesus? This isn't a James Bond movie, Hanna."_

 _Shrugging, she replied, "One, for years chill. Two, might as well be. Listen, how much do you trust Kevin and that new boy Adam?"_

 _I thought about it for about a minute, "Quite a lot, they're both doing the musical so I see them all the-"_

 _"_ _That's cute," She interrupted, "Do you trust them enough to tell them how you feel about Emily?"_

 _"_ _Maybe..." I hummed, "It's kind of personal though. What do they have to do with this?"  
"Okay, so I once read that if there's someone who you think you have feelings for, but you're not sure, and you see them dating someone else they'll know for sure. If they like you they'll try harder to get you. I think we should put this to the test." Hanna suggested.  
"You do know that Kevin is a raging homosexual, right?" I asked._

 _"_ _Yeah, and so is Adam. You can totally tell those two are gonna be banging by the end of the year."_

 _"_ _So off topic-"_

 _"_ _Anyways, just ask Adam and Kevin to talk about you in Art, they sit right behind us, and then ask Adam to ask you on a date afterschool. Kevin and I can watch for Emily's reaction. What do you say?"_

 _I made a conflicted face, "I don't know, I'll feel a bit cunty, isn't that manipulation?"_

 _"_ _No." She answered quickly._

 _"_ _How do you know Adam and Kevin will even want to do it?"_

 _"_ _Because they came up with it."_

Emily strolled up behind me, "Guess our plans mean less than a cute boy to you."

I felt horrible lying to her, but I had to go through with it now, "I guess it just slipped my mind, I'm sorry. Maybe tomorrow?"

She looked angry, "Forget it. I feel stupid for even thinking you cared."

I was about to respond and tell her that I did in fact care, but she had already run off and the bell went. I considered skipping just to talk to her, but I thought missing two years of school was probably enough.

Of course, I was actually going to hang out with Adam after school, not a date, but just two friends. I mean, mainly because he was also in the track team, so we kind of had to, but also because he was just a nice person to be around.

"Hey, blonde baby." Aria greeted happily as I strolled into Food Tech.  
"Hi, Ar." I responded, and I could hear sadness in my voice. God, Emily shouldn't affect me like this. She shouldn't be able to make me feel like shit so easily, she shouldn't be able to make me have feelings for her after all this fucking time.

"You okay?" Aria asked as we got our aprons on and tied our hair up.

I huffed, "No. I think Emily hates me."

Chuckling, Aria replied, "Oh, it's really quite the opposite."

"No, trust me. It's not." I assured her as we both fell silent for the teacher to tell us what we had to do. We were allowed to choose our own meal to make as long as it included cooking chicken (because that's what we were working on), so Aria and I obviously just went on BuzzFeed a few days ago and chose a recipe.

Aria went to go get the ingredients the two of us had brought in from home (that we put in the fridges) and I decided to text Emily while the teacher wasn't looking.

 _Alison: Were you pissed at me earlier?_

 _Emily: No._

 _Alison: You seemed pissed, em_

 _Emily: Well I'm not._

 _Alison: can u just tell me why_

 _Emily: if u can't tell why then I obviously shouldn't bother_

 _Alison: so u r annoyed?_

 _Emily: fucks sake, I'm going_

 _Alison: no Em don't go I need u to tell me_

After a few minutes of staring at the screen, I guessed she had probably put her phone away and continued with whatever class she was in. I knew Adam and I were going to make her jealous, but I didn't think she would get so moody so quickly. Sighing, I wondered if I should just tell her Hanna's plan and see if she liked me back. Judging by how she was reacting to Adam, she definitely had some feelings for me. Or was that just wishful thinking?

"Oh my god, Ali, you bought the most expensive chicken! Ha, Cindy, told you she would!" Aria gloated at our friend from across the room. The ginger girl just laughed and went back to her preparation.

Aria came back to our workstation and put all of the stuff down. As we began to heat up the pans and prepare the food, Aria brought our previous conversation up again.

"Where were we? Oh, yeah, no Emily doesn't hate you."

Sighing, I replied, "I literally just texted her, look." I showed Aria what Emily said and she bit her lip.

"It's not good…" The brunette trailed off.

"Yeah, I know. If I tell you something, can you keep it a secret? Well, Hanna already knows and so do Kevin and that new boy Adam, and you can tell Spencer and Noel if you want, oh and Mona. Maybe Cindy and Isabelle, Bryan and Darren can know if-"

"You just don't want Emily to know whatever you're about to tell me, right?" Aria guessed and I smiled at her.

"Yes. So, can you keep it a secret from her?" I asked, putting the chicken in the hot pan, causing the oil to splash up.

"Jesus Ali give me a warning next time, and yes you can trust me."

I began to tell her all about my feelings for Emily and Hanna's plan and Adam. She listened intently and even told me her thoughts on the whole ordeal.

"Do you think it's wrong?" I worried.

"No. Listen, Emily is one of the most stubborn people I know, she needs to be pushed like this. It's sweet that you feel bad, though. It shows how much you care about her." Aria smiled at me, stirring the sauce.

"I mean, I know I'm not like in love with her, she thought I was –A a few months ago, it's too soon to love her again." It's true that I used to love her, I used to be so terrified of being with her, knowing how conservative my father was, I wasn't sure if he still had that mind-set, but if I was being honest I did not give a fuck at that point.

"I don't know, I was still madly in love with Ezra even when I found out about the book. Don't you dare apologise about that, it wasn't your fault." She stopped me as I opened my mouth to say sorry for about the thousandth time.

I still felt horrible about what the girls had gone through because of me, and even though I knew it was an awful thought sometimes I think life would have been so much easier for everyone if my mother had never met my father, and she had never been put through the pain he put her through, and she wouldn't have been forced to marry him and have his children. I knew everyone would have had better lives; it's not even a maybe.

Emily would be the captain of the swim team; she'd probably be happily dating Maya. Spencer would probably still find a way to Toby, since I wouldn't have made him seem like a villain, and she'd probably be headed to Harvard or Oxford in a few months. Hanna and Mona would be happily shopping every weekend, and all the boys would be clamouring for either of their attentions, and they'd both be going to some kind of design college in New York or Chicago. Aria would probably be dating some cute artsy boy, and they'd be having coffee dates every Tuesday after school, and going to French restaurants every Friday, and old film festivals on their weekends, Aria would probably be going to a Manhattan college to get a literature degree. God they would have their dream lives without me.

It's a thought I can never stop having, how happy they'd be. It's not like I'd ever tell anyone how I felt, they'd just give me the old _'Don't be stupid, we'd hate our lives without you, we would all be so empty and sad'_ don't fool me, you can't miss something you never even had.

But maybe they wouldn't all be friends, because to be fair, I was the one to bring them all together.

 _It was the first day of Kindergarten, and of course five-year-old me was acting like I owned the place. Right now I was sitting eating lunch with a little Spencer Hastings (who I had already known basically all my life since we were neighbours) and an even littler Aria Montgomery (who the pair of us had made friends with within the first ten minutes of school). We were all talking about our favourite classes._

 _"_ _Well, I liked art. It's really fun." Aria beamed and Spencer shook her head._

 _"_ _I didn't like art, I couldn't think of what to draw. But I liked math, it made sense!" Spencer explained and bit her carrot stick._

 _"_ _I loved where we got to pretend, because it was really cool to be someone else." I told them and drunk my apple juice. I looked down at my lunch – which Spencer's mum had packed, since my parents were having one of their 'silly moments' as Mrs Hastings liked to describe them._

 _Suddenly, a chubbier girl with blonde hair plopped herself and her lunch down at the other end of our otherwise empty lunch table. She didn't raise her head; she just began eating in silence._

 _"_ _Hi." Aria greeted loudly, being the closet to the girl, who suddenly looked up._

 _"_ _Um, hi." She said softly._

 _"_ _Do you want to come sit with us? My friend Ali's got a seat next to her." Aria suggested, pointing to the seat across from her, next to me._

 _The girl shuffled and sat next to me._

 _"_ _What's your name?" Spencer inquired from across the table._

 _"_ _Ha-Hanna." Hanna stuttered._

 _"_ _Hello Hanna. I'm Alison, and this is Spencer, she lives next to me and she's kinda boring sometimes but it's okay because she's really smart, and this is Aria, and she's really good at art." Spencer glared at me a bit but then the two of them smiled and started talking to Hanna. We sat there for a little bit, just chatting, but then I saw another girl. She was brunette, and she too looked lost. The girl was standing a few feet away from me, with her blue lunchbox in her hand. I noticed she was desperately looking for somewhere to sit._

 _"_ _Hey!" I shouted, trying to get her attention. She looked at me, "You wanna come sit here?"_

 _She smiled at me, and Spencer and Aria shuffled a seat over so she could sit opposite me. She had massive and kind brown eyes, which were now staring at me. We all introduced ourselves and the girl, who was called Emily, easily joined our conversation._

 _Our younger selves had no idea what the friendship we were forming would lead to…_

"Are you looking forward to Ezra coming home?" I suddenly asked, snapping myself out of my depressing thoughts.

"Ugh, of course. I've missed him so much. I just wanna hug him and kiss his handsome face." Aria answered, getting obviously wrapped up in her own little world.

"Ew. Please don't ever repeat those words again." I laughed, which snapped her out of her weird fantasyland with Fitz.

We only had about five minutes left of the lesson, so we just had to plate our meal, clean up and go. Aria did the cleaning because she was a right clumsy idiot when it came to plating.

"Right class, you worked very well today, you can all go, take your food if you want to." The teacher said and most of the class took their food so they could have it at lunch, but I knew that it was Italian Thursday, so Aria and I passed.

"Fucking hell has a teacher ever sounded so suicidal?" Cindy chuckled as she and Isabella came up next to us. The four of us joked about Mrs Chapman as we made our way to the cafeteria.

"Hey, Ali, don't forget track after school." Cindy reminded me, while Izzy and Aria went ahead, more eager for the food than us.

"Don't worry, I won't. Hey, have you seen Adam?" I asked, needing to check up on the poor dude.

Cindy grinned, "What, your new link?"

I rolled my eyes, "Jesus, we're not linking. Hang on," I said and I copy and pasted the text Kevin had sent to Hanna (which Hanna had sent to me just to make sure I was clear) and sent it to Cindy, "Kevin sent that to Hanna this morning."

She gasped, "Fucking scandal, I personally love it. Props to you, Al, because I know this kind of shit makes you feel awful because you're that kind of person, but trust me, you shouldn't. I've got to go, I've got lunch detention with Mr Stevens. Here's a tip: don't pretend to shoot a hot glue gun in the middle of DT, because glue trickles down the gun and gets stuck, so just keep that in mind." She advised, and I laughed. She hugged me and went off the DT block.

I ran to get caught up with Aria and Izzy, who were already in the cafeteria.  
"Cindy has detention, by the way." I told them as I joined them in the line.

"Why?" Aria looked confused.

"Glue gun incident, I'm in her DT." Izzy piped up and grabbed us three trays. We all got our food – I got a few slices of pizza and a sprite – and sat down at the table where Hanna and Emily were waiting for us. Izzy said she had to go and help some freshman kid study in the library, hugged Aria and me goodbye and left, still carrying her tray.

I sat down next to Emily (Aria sat opposite next to Hanna) and put my tray down.

Emily glanced at me and sighed, and I just wanted to shout the truth at her and tell her how sorry I was, but Hanna was right there, and I knew that she would probably tackle me if I even attempted.

"Hey, Em." I said cheerily, hoping she would talk to me.

"Hi, Ali." Emily returned the greeting, and I let out a breath of air that I didn't know I was holding.

We talked about just general stuff, and gossiped for the whole of lunch, and midway through Spencer joined the table.

* * *

"Hey, Adam, you should speed up next time." I shouted to him after Track practise had finished. I swear he was so fast you could barely see him as he ran.

"Funny. You ready?" He ran his hand through his sandy hair and picked up his stuff from the bleachers.

"Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go." I said and we went to the parking lot. We decided to take my car, since Kevin drove him this morning. He put his phone on the AUX and started playing Paula Abdul.

"Wow, didn't have you down as a Paula type of person." I commented when Straight Up came on.

"I fucking love this song!" He began to scream the lyrics and I joined him.

 _I've been a fool before, wouldn't like to get my love caught in the slamming door, how about some information please._

 _Straight up now tell me do you really wanna love me forever?_

By the end of the song we were at the Brew.

"I'll get the coffee's, you get the table." Adam instructed as we entered the shop. The smell of freshly brewed coffee entered my nose and I hummed at the calming sensation.

I was going to choose our regular table by the window, but when I saw my five girls sitting there I chose the one opposite it on the right. I knew Emily wouldn't be able to hear what we were saying there, but it still was kinda annoying when Hanna winked at me as I took a seat and Mona sat there with a massive smirk in my direction, they had obviously clued her in (and probably Spencer, too) on the plan. My face fell as I noticed how sad my Em looked.

As he approached, I knew Adam noticed the girls there, because he suddenly got a lot more butch, and I tried my hardest not to burst out laughing. I don't know why we went all manly; it wasn't as if the girls didn't already know how camp he was.

"Your coffee, babe." He handed me my vanilla latte and I giggled, Christ this was going to be interesting.

"Thanks, Ads. Ok, so back on track," I said, going back to our conversation from yesterday, "Marilyn."

"Totes a babe. Would bang." I cringed and laughed watching him sit in such a jock-ish position and talk like that.

"I'm actually gonna just go ahead and change the subject. Did you hear Ariana Grande was named the gay icon of our generation?"

The boy sat up straight and said in his usual voice, "I know! It's a pisstake! She does a lot for the gay community but that doesn't make her gay! She's just an ally, Gaga should've got it, and I read somewhere she's bi." He ranted and I nodded.

"You're right." I agreed and sipped on my coffee. As the two of us talked, I could see Emily moping in our direction out of the corner of my eye.

The minutes ticked by quickly, and soon it was 6:30 and I told him we should get going. The girls stood up to leave at the same time (what a coincidence, fucking stalkers).

As she left, Emily muttered, "Hope he was better company than me."

I huffed and put my empty coffee cups in the trash. Adam took my hand and led me out. Emily was leaning against Spencer's car, waiting for everyone else.

Without warning, Adam grabbed my face and kissed me, hard. His lips were soft and tasted like apples. Kissing him back, I secretly hoped that Emily was watching, realising that she could be Adam right now, kissing me in front of the Brew. He pulled back after a few minutes. Before I could check his expression, he got into his car. Eh, he wasn't awful. I looked over my shoulder at Emily, whose knuckles were white with how hard she was gripping the side of the car. Her face was one of pure anger. I tried to hold back my guilt, but it didn't work. I just got into the car and drove Adam to his house, then went home myself.

 **A/N: Hi guys! Sorry this update took so long, I'm in Croatia right now so I haven't had wifi on my laptop, but I just found out the lobby has wifi, so I might be able to put up one more update before I go home Wednesday. Reading the reviews on the last chapter was so funny because of how much you all hated Adam, but I hope more of you will like him now that you're getting to know him more. If any of you are still confused about anything in particular please leave a review telling me because I'm trying to make sure you all understand the story. This chapter is probably my personal favourite so far! Thank you all for reading and please please please review! 3**


	16. UPDATE

Hey guys! I'm so so so sorry I haven't updated this for months, school's been awful lately, everything's been really hard so I hope you can forgive me! Anyways, I'm not going to be posting this story here anymore, instead I'll be posting on ao3, and making slight changes (none to the actual storyline, just grammar and changes in word choices that I don't particularly like and maybe some extra chapters where I feel things went too quickly or didn't make sense 3). Thank you to everyone who read it on here. If you still want to read it, here's the link to it on ao3: /works/13100097/chapters/29970732


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